Feel the Teal: Developing Your Service Mindset
What is a “service mindset?” Do you have one?
When we started Feel the Teal, our intention was to positively impact the culture of service at Coastal Carolina University. We know that to change culture, the mindset of the stakeholders must change first. With this in mind, we continually strive to focus on both individual and systemic ways that we can create more value, loyalty and trust for everyone at CCU. To do this, we must desire and endeavor to go beyond simply providing a product or service. We must all choose a mindset of service that seeks to create a positive and indelible imprint in the customer’s, or even potential customer’s, mind. Ultimately, everyone who interacts with our community should feel the teal!
We began this journey with eight training sessions for our employees, and the response has been phenomenal. Yet, we know there is a need for more. As noted in the January article, “What You Said, What We Did,” there have been many employees asking, “What’s next?” I’d like to answer that question in further detail and explain more about the five new trainings created as part of the Feel the Teal Service Mindset Series.
Coastal History Tour: This session is a follow-up to the most popular training session of the original eight modules from the Feel the Teal program, CCU History and Traditions. The tour highlights several historic areas and landmarks on campus. It also allows employees to visit some of newest buildings, including Tradition and Chanticleer residence halls, Swain and Science II.
Roundtable Refresher: Part of developing a service mindset is continuous learning and improvement. This session provides the opportunity to learn about the new content that has been added to the original eight training modules while discussing best practices from your respective areas.
Lunch and Learn: Service excellence in higher education is a relatively new field. We recognize that our amazing employees at Coastal are helping shape the field through their everyday work in service excellence. We want to capitalize on your knowledge and allow it to be shared. This training will allow you, the employee, to sit down in an informal lunch setting to network with colleagues and share best practices.
Servicescape Part I: We want you to take a walk in the customer’s shoes at CCU! This training teaches you the three steps to complete a Servicescape (Booms and Bitner) Audit for a department on campus. The Servicescape tool raises awareness about the importance of the actual physical environment where University services are performed, delivered and consumed. This training prepares you to utilize this tool for the growth of your department or other departments on campus.
Servicescape Part II: As a follow-up to Part I, you will participate in a discussion of the Servicescape audit you completed. Servicescape findings and reports will be shared with Feel the Teal Task Force, appropriate campus departments fand me. We are hopeful that this training will continue the forward momentum toward a more service-oriented and student-focused environment.
Hopefully, you can see that Feel the Teal® is a process of continual growth and development. I highly encourage all CCU faculty, staff and students to actively participate in this process and attend a service mindset training.
Sincerely,
David A. DeCenzo, Ph.D.
President
