Why Student Experience Will Revolutionize Higher Ed

Are students customers? It’s one of the most heated debates in higher education. In a New York Times editorial titled “Are They Students? Or ‘Customers’?” the author shared perspectives on this very question from several high-profile deans, presidents, and professors of major U.S. universities including George Washington, Chicago Booth School of Business, Ohio University, and Columbia. No surprise: their views were split right down the middle.

According to the Economist, more master’s degrees are awarded in the U.S. in the field of business than in any other discipline—about 190,000 at the end of 2017. Since the end of the Great Recession in 2009, many out-of-work professionals have sought an MBA to return to the job market; for working professionals, the need for an advanced degree is seen to re-start their careers to take it in a new direction. One change that’s taking place is that traditional degrees in finance and human resources are giving way to specialized fields such as healthcare and business analytics. But there’s a more critical disruption taking place in higher education: the rise of the student as customer. Yes, you’re reading that right; students are in fact customers and today’s customers don’t buy products and services, they buy experiences.

To give you an idea of how prevalent this customer experience movement is, many Fortune 500 companies have either created a new position or hired from within, a senior-level executive in charge of Customer Experience. These job titles are among the latest trend in Corporate America: Customer Experience Officer (CXO), Chief Customer Officer (CCO), or Chief of Customer Experience (CCE). Not to be outdone, some forward-thinking universities have begun to focus on the student experience by recruiting similar types of positions to those in corporations. Some of the newest within universities include Director of Student Success, Head of Student Success, Dean of Student Success, Student Experience Manager, or the Chief Student Experience Officer (CSXO). It’s time that universities not only create their own function focused on Customer Experience but also a strategy to drive student attraction, retention, and advocacy.

What Customer Experience Is…

Marketers talk about “touchpoints” or those interactions where customers encounter a brand or experience the brand after purchase. In today’s digitally driven marketing environment, a touchpoint can come in the form of a social media post, the organization’s website, or a more traditional way of marketing like TV, radio, or print media. A university that delivers a unique student-customer experience over the entirety of the relationship—from attraction to alumni relations—via these touchpoints will reap enormous benefits: increased student enrollment, increased word-of-mouth referrals, and raised brand awareness of the school and its program.

…And What It Isn’t

Creating a unique and satisfying customer experience does not involve a shared services approach, as some universities have utilized (shared services is a method of organizing administrative functions to optimize the delivery of cost-effective, flexible, and efficient services to a group of internal customers). By embarking on a shared services project, some universities have been able to reduce costs by doing more with less. This is certainly a laudable goal, but it fits the profile of an organization that wants to save money, not one that wants to create and implement a student-customer experience strategy.

Competing on Student Experience

Management consultancy Gartner predicted recently that 89 percent of brands would compete mainly on customer experience, versus 36 percent four years earlier. Today’s brands are indeed competing on customer experience—but some brands remain painfully oblivious. Businesses today are in a rush to sell customers products with no thought for how the experience feels for the customer. According to Salesforce.com, 30 percent of marketers say that customer satisfaction is “one of their top metrics.” This number needs to be much higher. The people responsible for the reputation and communication of the brand are not thinking about what it’s like to do business with or experience their brand. Unfortunately, this makes sense, as in most organizations customer experience does not get much funding or attention.

The University Student-Customer Experience

In a university scenario, the student-customer journey begins with attraction through word-of-mouth referrals, a website, social media platforms, or another form of media, and ends with alumni relations. Satisfied alumni can be a university’s most important brand ambassador. Any weakness or negative rating along the customer journey—which most often spans academic functions including admissions, financial aid, advising, and faculty—will likely produce an undesirable result.

As you implement your approach, universities must understand that the student-customer experience journey is continuous. You can’t set a strategy, execute it, and then be done. Any customer experience plan must contain constant feedback loops and plans to continually reassess performance leading to improvements and better-satisfied student-customers. Technology has changed the way we live, study, and work—and it continues to evolve each day. What worked in 2019 may not work in 2025.

My view is that universities must continue to not only meet but exceed the expectations of their student-customers. Adopting a business strategy now by creating a unique customer experience which leads to the creation of the Happy Student? is a good place to start.

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