Spring Branch ISD Featured News

 

On a recent professional development day in Spring Branch ISD, more than 200 SBISD paraprofessionals spent the morning at the Share A Smile Customer Service Conference.

An opening welcome from Superintendent Scott Muri, Ed.D., set the tone as he recounted the importance of arriving to work each day with a smile and good attitude.

“We heard lots of reminders that the easiest way to establish a positive climate is to SMILE,” said one campus paraprofessional at the October conference.

Share A Smile, a customer service initiative in SBISD, focuses employees on ways to provide excellent service so all customers are welcomed, heard, valued and helped. In the past year, a series of customer service conferences targeting front line employees have been held to keep service shining brightly by learning and sharing best practices for attracting and retaining families and employees in the district.

At the most recent conference, keynote speaker Brad Domitrovich spoke to the group about smiling as being the easiest way to establish good customer service. He described customer service as being a series of experiences, some big, some small, that can add up to great results in meeting the fundamental needs of customers.

“Often it is the little things that make a difference,” said Domitrovich.

Domitrovich told a story of an office assistant who stood up and shook hands with each visitor to her office.

He learned these gestures of welcome and respect from her, and adopted them into his own best practices. On the post-conference evaluation, several SBISD paraprofessionals mentioned their decision to incorporate this practice into their daily routines.

Following the keynote, the morning conference was divided into breakout sessions focusing on other components of customer service. Over 70 paraprofessionals participated in a session called Living on the Edge: A Poverty Simulation.

“The poverty simulation was really eye-opening to feel what people struggle with daily when they are in those situations,” said one participant.  “If we can give a smile, treat them with respect and listen to them we can make a difference in their lives.”

Susan Shaw, education director with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), presented a session titled When We Assume We… In this class, attendees were challenged to examine biases, conscious or unconscious, and not make assumptions about how to treat customers based on misguided cues.

“Today was great,” said Ms. Shaw. “Thank you for including ADL in the conversation about customer service.”

Other presenters provided strategies for helping difficult customers (young and old!), keeping a positive attitude and communicating with customers.

Another session enlightened attendees about a multitude of employee perks so they could, in turn, share the information with their colleagues, who are internal customers.

A Lunch and Learn session wrapped up the conference. Tabletop discussions to hear the “ah-ha’s” of other conference attendees and dialogues about why customer service is important in Spring Branch ISD earned the participants extra professional development credit. Networking with associates from various campuses and departments was an additional benefit of the working lunch.

“It is important to have a smile and have a positive attitude no matter what kind of changes you go through in your personal or professional life,” said a paraprofessional in her conference evaluation. “A smile and a positive attitude will take you to places you never imagine.”

During this seventh year of the initiative, SBISD is also expanding Share A Smile by developing a customer service commitment pledge for all employees to embrace as they serve internal and external constituents.

The district also seeks input from customers about their experiences as one of the ways to measure customer satisfaction. Customer Service Feedback links, recently installed on each campus and department webpage, are methods for district customers to send kudos or “please-help-fix-this” messages to site leaders.

“Customer Service is part of everyone’s job in SBISD as we embrace customized supports for Every Child,” said Becky Wuerth, SBISD customer service specialist. “Our Core Values shape who we are when we are at our best. The Limitless Curiosity core value drives us to “tenaciously embrace” the challenge of improving customer service day by day, person by person – with a smile.”