Higher education is a people-oriented enterprise.

At its best, the university setting allows people to share ideas and information to enhance individual knowledge and opportunities as well as our collective well being.

However people-centric the industry is, I think many colleges and universities could stand to learn a thing or two about customer service from leading businesses.

In the for-profit world, companies like Zappos, Southwest, USAA and L.L.Bean have built their brand on understanding customer needs and providing top-notch customer service. (The likes of BusinessWeek and J.D. Power frequently rank these organizations as customer service leaders).

Other businesses, like Comcast, have been able to change the customer service dynamic at their oganization with the help of social media.

Two recent presentations at the .eduGuru Summit delved deeper in to the subject of social media and customer service in higher education, including how to attract, retain, and empower our “customers.”

The presentations are available on slideshare and offer plenty of food for thought:

As many industry experts have been saying for some time now customer service is marketing and marketing is customer service (see: Teresa Basich of Radian6 | Paul Dunay blog | Josh Bernoff of Forrester). There is no better spokesperson for your university than a satisfied customer.

How does your university use social media in customer service? What has worked?
How can you use resources like social media to be more efficient and effective in customer interactions?