UNIVERSITY COLLEGE of the FRASER VALLEY

headlines

Volume 7, Number 6,

Very scary — Jody Cameron was one of
several dozen UCFVers who dressed up
on Halloween. She reports that she was
virtually ignored by people in Chilliwack
as she ran errands at lunchtime.

Both the Abbotsford and Chilliwack
business offices hosted Halloween
parties.

Nov. 12, 1992

Strategic planning
concept launched

Attached to this edition of
Headlines 1s a special bulletin on the
proposal to begin a major strategic
planning process to set the course of
UCFV for the next 5-10 years.
The community, students, faculty,
staff, administration and the Board
will take part in the first phase of
planning, beginning in Jan. 93.

See the back two pages of
Headlines for the special bulletin.

Connections puts customer-service focus
into college context

At UCFYV, students are customers,
both when they ’re in the classroom and
when they ’re using services and
resources. Not only are students
customers, so are other employees, and
members of the general public.

They expect excellent service in
return for the time, money and effort
~ they invest in us. Their impression of
UCFYV is based on the quality of service
they receive in every area they contact.

There is an increasing emphasis on
quality and customer service in all types
of businesses and institutions these days,
with dozens of workshops and seminars
on these topics offered every year.

However, workshops that apply these
concepts to a college setting are not as
common.

ae

Connections, a one-and-a-half-day

workshop offered to new staff members —

recently , sought to place the
quality/customer service message into a
college context.

Judging from the response of
participants, it worked. They gave
Connections an average rating of 8.5 out
10 for effectiveness.

The training included three
videotapes on different aspects of
customer service, small-group
discussions, and role-play ing.

Personnel officer Carol Hardy and Jill
Vike, administrative assistant to the
president, organized and facilitated the
workshop.

“The workshop was very interesting
— I learned a lot by going through it
myself,” says Vike.

The training combined three
Connections videotapes with group
discussion. The video topics were
“understanding why people do what
they do”, “the language of positive
communication”, and “the art of
satisfying students”. All the examples
used were in a college setting.

Discussion focused on “how we view
and handle certain issues at UCFV, and
how we can improve,” according to
Vike, who says the training would
benefit employees “who want to
reassess their skills, learn how to handle

Please see Connections, page 2