About Us: Our History | Service First | The University of Arizona

In 2004 The University of Arizona engaged Noel-Levitz, a nationally renowned educational consulting firm to assist with the creation of student recruitment and retention plans. As part of the consulting project Noel-Levitz administered its proprietary Student Satisfaction Survey (SSI) to the student body. This instrument identified many of the University’s strengths and challenges which are fully discussed in the Strategic Retention Master Plan.

The SSI revealed that our students have higher expectations for service than other college students at comparable institutions around the nation. The SSI data also indicated that our students were more dissatisfied with our customer service than students at other comparable intuitions. To correct this, the Vice President for Enrollment Management, Patti Ota, convened a committee of people known for their commitment to excellent service. She charged us with improving service on campus and we got to work.

To date we have:

Had a dialogue with campus community and campus decision makers about customer service
Created training materials and now offer customer service training once each semester to any employee whose job involves providing service to the community
Deployed customer service feedback boxes to campus departments
Developed this website
Developed mechanisms for distributing customer feedback to vice presidents, deans, and department heads
Developed a recognition and reward system for employees who consistently get good feedback
Created a best practices document for distribution to the campus community
Created a secret shopper program to evalute service on campus

In the Fall of 2007 the customer service improvement effort moved into the newly formed Student Affairs Division. Our charge hasn't changed and there’s more to come! We hope each member of the community will assist us in promoting a friendly and respectful environment on campus. If you provide service, feel free to attend training and use the best practices. If you use campus services, give us feedback! Fill out a paper feedback card or use the one here so we can assess our progress.