Sun. 1pm-10pm

Bonjour.  I live in a bilingual country and that’s all the French I know.  Shame on me.  Well, I do know a few other key survival words: champagne, croissant, brie, quiche!  So it’s about time I learned French and so I now own the complete Rosetta Stone French programme.

My package arrived last Friday and on Saturday I went to install the software on my computer.  Being somewhat of a tech idiot, I, to no surprise, had problems.  No worries.  There’s a 1-800 support number I can call.  I called it.  They were closed.  You feel my pain.  You, like I did, think I’m doomed to wait until Monday. 

Think again.

Rosetta Stone tech support is closed on Saturdays but open from 1pm to 10pm on Sundays.  I just had to wait 24 hours.  I spent those 24 hours being very curious about these odd hours.  So once I called tech support and got my issue resolved (shocking: I was inserting the dvd’s in the wrong sequence, despite their being clearly labeled!), I inquired about their support schedule. 

You know where this is going: people buy the software while running errands on the weekends and then attempt installation on Sunday afternoon.  So 5pm on Sunday and not 9am on Saturday is when RS support is needed and so that’s when they’re available!

When are we needed?  It was something we discussed at this year’s Essex Institute.  Shouldn’t day schools have evening open houses for busy two-income parents?  Maybe even interviews a few times at night during the busy season to accommodate those parents?  Boarding schools work with students from around the world and from many time zones.  Why do we force them all into our 9am to 5pm workday?  Or maybe we don’t and we’re losing families because we’re not available to support them when they need us.  Is it so crazy to ask a staff member to take a 4pm to midnight shift once and a while to be available on the phone or maybe an online chat?

I read something related just recently about social media.  (I apologize I don’t recall the source but I fully confess this isn’t my own idea.)  The advice was to look and see when our blogs and Facebook accounts are the most active and to post then.  Not to do so during our own 9am to 5pm work hours when our prospective students are in school.  Like good teaching, we have to meet them where they are.

My last post was about thinking what’s at the center of our offices.  I guess this one asks us to think about what time to be there.

Au Revoir!

At the center

 

Living in Canada, it’s been a while since I was in a Barnes& Noble.  And given with what haste big bookstores are closing, it’s no surprise.  They’re not easy to find.  But what was a surprise was when I walked in and found that the Nook display and sales area had taken over the center of the floor, replacing what had traditionally been the spot for Barnes & Noble customer service.

You remember customer service, right?  Helpful folks who would look up books for you and then walk with you into the stacks to find the book, as though you couldn’t manage the convoluted alpha-by-author’s-last-name filing system of Barnes & Noble.  Those friendly book geeks were eventually supplemented by kiosks, on which you could look up your own book, thank you very much.  But if you waited just a moment, someone would be right back from helping a customer over in 14^th Century Danish War and Religion and be able to help you next.  Amazon couldn’t touch this!

So imagine my surprise when there was no longer a customer service center in the middle of the store.  I write this as I head off to the Essex Institute for Enrollment Management.  I’ve lost track of how many years I have gone. 12?  14 maybe?  But I am suddenly remembering a conversation from last year’s meeting.  We were looking at school taglines or admissions mottos and were challenged to ask ourselves if the mottos were about the school or the student.  Where was your focus?  It was an insightful, interesting exercise and conversation.

Essentially, it asked what we had at the center of our schools: the school itself or the students?  Nooks or customers?

And this reminded me of an early post by Fran Ryan, Assistant Headmaster at Rumsey Hall School, on SSATB’s “Right On Time: the ALCBlog”.  Fran is a veteran at helping families navigate the waters of secondary school admissions but has recently had to “self-navigate” his family as they went through the process for his son.

Fran challenges us from his new perspective by stating, “In schools, admission processes seem to generally serve the efficient running of the office. That does not necessarily translate into creating a meaningful experience for a family examining a school.  Make sure that your process makes sense for your prospective families. Make sure that it is efficient and easy to manage, which is different from being easy.”

In other words, make sure that service, and not sales, is in the center of your “store”.