Institution-wide partnerships toenhance student service quality

In the current competitive and globalised higher education market, higher education institutions are increasingly being called to account for the quality of education and student experience that they provide. Service quality is one of the primary forces underlying competitive performance in the sector and, as such, must be situated at the forefront of strategic and operational planning and implementation. This presentation shares the University of Tasmania’s Vision for Student Service Quality and maps progress of the Vision since its establishment in 2014 against the desired outcomes. The Vision articulates a customer-centric student service model in which service quality is reliant on four key factors of influence, or Enablers: People and Capability, Physical and Virtual Spaces, Business Processes and Systems, and Evaluation and Business Intelligence. All of the Enablers are positioned within the broader student experience context, to ensure that students’ academic and graduate outcomes remain at the fore as the expectations and needs of students are considered. Fundamental to the success of the Vision is the need for whole of institution collaboration and investment in the Enablers, where institutional partnerships across organisational boundaries within the University together build effective practices and support strategies to enhance service quality. In this presentation, we describe the student service model and factors that underpin the Vision, examine the University’s current institutional performance in relation to student experience and service quality, and discuss the critical nature of cross-institutional partnerships for a vision of student service quality to succeed.