RA360: Customer Service
TL;DR
Customer service skills are an important part of your role. Although not everything you do is motivated by customer service, it’s important to make sure facilities are up-to-date and that residents ensure their basic needs are met.
If you’ve had a customer service job before, many of the skills you learned may help you in your RA or student staff member role! College student housing is a little bit unique, however.
Why Is Customer Service Important?
As an RA you might not think about your role as one that requires customer service skills, but college student housing is a bit unique. While residence hall provide a space for community, and an opportunity to learn and grow, they also represent a service that residents pay for. This especially comes into play with issues like maintenance, facilities, and the “business” aspects of housing. So although your role isn’t solely one of customer service, there are aspects of your job where it may come into play.
“Customer service is really relationship management. And as I see it, our work in Residence Life really is nothing more complex than building relationships with students. We build relationships with parents and family members to support students. We build relationships between the student and the institution by connecting them to resources and to student organizations and to peers, but it takes a lot of work and structure to effectively understand our students and to build those meaningful and connected relationships.“
Focus On Your Resident’s Needs
One concept that is useful to apply when understanding customer service in college student housing is Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs.” This psychological theory proposes that our needs must be met at their most basic level before “higher order” needs can be met.
So, for example, you can’t focus on building community (“Love and Belonging”) if basic needs like working heat and a non-leaky roof (“Physiological”) aren’t met first. Or, if your residents don’t feel safe in their community (“Safety”), they won’t be able to learn, grow, and develop (“Self-Actualization”).
There are a number of theories, like Maslow’s, that can help you in your role. Click on to explore more of these theories.
Case Study: “My Heat’s Not Working!”
Scenario: It’s mid-November, and a first-year resident named Jordan stops the RA, Casey, in the hallway looking frustrated.
“My room is freezing. I’ve submitted a maintenance request, but no one’s come by. It’s been two days. I can’t sleep!”
What Casey Did (Customer Service in Action): Instead of brushing it off or redirecting Jordan to the online portal again, Casey took a few minutes to:
- Actively listen to Jordan’s concern without interrupting.
- Validate their frustration: “I totally get how stressful that must be, especially with the cold weather.”
- Clarify details by asking: “Did you get a confirmation email after you submitted the request?”
- Take ownership of the situation by offering to follow up with facilities directly.
- Communicate clearly: Casey promised to check in within 24 hours and gave Jordan an alternate lounge with space heaters in the meantime.
Casey emailed the facilities team and learned there had been a backlog due to a supply issue. She updated Jordan that same evening and followed up again once the repair was completed the next day.
Key Takeaways:
- Casey’s approach turned a negative situation into an opportunity to build trust and rapport.
- Great customer service doesn’t mean solving every problem yourself—it means being responsive, empathetic, and proactive.
- Even when RAs don’t control the final outcome (like repair speed), residents notice and appreciate clear communication and follow-through.
Should Higher Education Be More Customer Service Focused?
Pros
With falling enrollment and prospective students and families beginning to question the value of attending an institution of higher education, many believe that improving customer service can help course-correct.
Tips for Walking the Line Between
- Implement social media and technology that prioritizes a user friendly experience.
- Clear communication at every step of the complicated processes like class registration, housing selection, and student billing.
- Staff at all levels are available and have the right answers to the frequently asked questions.
- Seek to be highly reviewed and recommended by our “previous customers.”
Cons
Universities are not department store atmospheres where students have a retail, rather than a learning, experience. Is this not at odds with the product being an infinite resource like knowledge?
The Magic of the Mouse 🐭
If you think of companies that have great customer service, it’s likely that Disney comes to mind. Check out some tips we can learn from their approach to customer service.
Questions To Ponder:
- What role does customer service play in your job?
- When do you use customer service skills?
- When might you not utilize those skills?
- When did you receive “good customer service”? What did that look like? What did the person(s) do?
RA360 Outcomes:
RAs and student staff members will be able to:
- Articulate why customer services is important in college student housing.
- Recall principles and strategies for good customer service.
More To Explore
RA360 is a set of resources organized around skills, topics and competencies relevant to Resident Advisors and similar related student staff positions in college and university residence halls.
