Our headline sounds too trivially obvious to be worth stating, but it is such a fundamental concept that it warrants emphasis. This basic concept is lost on so many RTOs. Successful RTOs have customer service built into every facet of their organisation. In days gone by of plentiful Government Funding the concept of the student being a customer was dead. The Funding Body became the customer because they had the money and needed the reports.

In today's RTO market, students have a far greater choice of RTO than ever before. Qualification funding has dropped and many RTOs are asking the student to financially contribute to their qualification.

Now who's the customer?

The customer is, and has always been the student. Government Funded or not, if the student does not complete there is no income. Put another way, if you own a corner store and you don't give your customers outstanding service they will leave with their wallets firmly in their pocket.

It is generally accepted that it costs anywhere from four to 10 times more to win a new customer than to keep an existing one. Winning customers and then keeping them loyal are critical business requirements. But what keeps customers loyal? As is usual with such questions, the answer is: Many things. Price, quality, availability, previous relationship and even just the inertia of staying with a company they’ve dealt with for some time all play a part, but customer service is another decisive factor.

In May 2007, Accenture released the results of another survey that canvassed 1,200 technology consumers in North America, Europe and Asia. It found that consumer technology companies that offer average – not poor, just average – customer service alienated consumers and risked losing almost three-quarters of their customers to competitors. Plainly, customer service is critical to customer loyalty, hence company profitability.

These are not bold statements. These are statements that speak to our intuition about customer service. One thing becomes abundantly clear as we venture into the RTO Customer Service arena, contrary to the usual assumption, customer service is not a cost. It’s an investment.

Every staff member in your RTO is in the Customer Service industry:

For General Managers
You are the leader of your organisation and the one that can embed customer service. If your staff don't have good Customer Service Skills, you won't have customers to service.

For Training Managers
Everything you touch on a day to day basis is for your students, or your customers.

For Training Admin and Back Office Staff
You are the gatekeeper of the RTO processes. If your processes are time consuming for you, they'll be time consuming for your students and they will become disinterested.

For Trainers
You are the face of your RTO. Students will be engaged or defect because of your customer service.

So how can we improve customer service?

There are many factors that contribute to customer service. In fact we could write a whole book on each of these items. The one factor that every successful student encounters is assessment submission. Without it, there are no qualifications to be produced and no Traineeship Funding.

Assessment submission, particularly for manual tasks and on the job training, conjures up the image of a trainer with a clip board. Making notes, asking questions and collecting signatures at the end. This image is not just in your mind. It's in your student's minds too.

The problem with this process is that students then wait days, weeks or longer to receive feedback and their qualification. Paperwork goes missing. Assessments sit in a trainer's car for longer than they should. And meanwhile the student loses interest.

What customer would wait for days or weeks to receive service?

Your RTO can change this image of training evidence collection to one of engagement, efficiency and cutting edge customer service by collecting assessments on mobile devices and submitting them instantly.

Picture this: You send your trainer out on site to assess 10 students in a variety of units that include manual handling, written and verbal assessment. Your trainer is armed with an iPad. Each student's profile is on the iPad, and the trainer can film the student during manual handling, gain consent for taking the image, allow the student to complete a variety of question types on the iPad and collect the student and trainer's signature on conclusion. This digital assessment is time, date and geolocation stamped to prove the assessment is valid.

Instantly your Training Department are notified of a submitted assessment, complete with Trainer's remarks and competency grade. The assessment is validated by your Training Department and the student receives formal feedback on the same day.

No paper. No delays for the student. No delays in submissions for funding by the RTO.

This process actively ensures that your students are receiving customer service. The RTO process is getting out of the way and letting your students get qualified faster than ever. And that means you're getting paid faster than ever.

There are even more benefits to this paperless training evidence collection process than you might think. Your customers are happy. Your trainers are happy because they have reduced their paperwork. Your admin staff are happy because assessments are submitted complete, on time and in an orderly fashion. And your RTO Manager is happy because cash flow has been improved and funding is not being missed by late or lost assessments. Plus, you've significantly reduced your paper and postage costs.

It's all win-win.

The wrap

Customer service is both intuitive and difficult to grasp at an organisational level. As individuals we know the customer service we like to receive. As an organisation, embracing the key factors of customer communications and removing red tape are critical to your customer service efforts.

A change in process is the fastest way to embed customer service into your organisation. Going paperless can reduce the highest risk area of your RTO: Training evidence collection and submission.