Inefficient colleges don’t do students any favours

I was interested in Fritz Fitton’s letter about the lack of response from the educational department he contacted regarding student placement (DW 22 September).

My considerable experience of attempting to contact any individual in a university or college is not unlike black magic. Most have not got a clue when it comes to ‘servicing customers’. They could not work in a commercial environment.

I set an open challenge for anyone within a college/ university to telephone ten colleagues from outside the institution and see what the response levels are. Atrocious. I can tell you now.

First, there is the main switch board. Now this isn’t the receptionist’s fault – she can not always answer the telephone for ten minutes because she is probably making coffee, doing ten other things or taking other calls. With all those departments, staff and students, finding the right extension is often a miracle. It might be engaged, or, worse still, you might be put on hold. No chance to ask a thing or leave a message, another five minutes wait. Eventually, you hang up. You try again later – same response.

The best one is when the switchboard comes back to you and transfers you to ‘the office’. The people you end up talking to make no effort to help you, perhaps their excuse is ‘it isn’t my job’.

If you get to leave a message, it has to get to the right person in the right location. I have had people from college/ university calling me back ten days after I left a message needing an answer that afternoon.

Phones are only available in ‘staff rooms’. Staff rooms are very rarely open. The secret is to phone five minutes before the room closes or within five minutes of it opening. After that you have no chance. The only problem is getting past the main switchboard.

Education establishments do not work like industry, with usually one telephone between five or six individuals. Individual staff have no one individual ‘looking after them’. If they don’t do it themselves it doesn’t get done.

You could, of course, always write a letter, but that’s another storyä

William Gradwell

Gradwell Corporate Design

geoff@gradwellcorporatedesign.co.uk

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