I want to nominate Ms. Marcia Faglier for a Chancellor’s Customer Service Award for her work on the Augusta State University (ASU) Tuition Assistance Program (TAP). The Tuition Assistance Program is abenefitavailable to employees of the Board of Regents so they may attend a USG institution without paying tuition. Usually, the employees attend the school where they work. However, in Augusta we have the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) in addition to Augusta State. Many MCG employees want to attend ASU using the TAP benefit.The ratio is 3 times more MCG employees than ASU employees in any given semester.
The key components of the TAP program are:
The employee must be enrolled as a student at the institution they want to attend.
The employee must file for financial aid, as the institution wants to receive any grant money available to the employee.
The employee must apply by the TAP deadline as set by the Board of Regents with their supervisor’s approval.
The employee must state the correct teaching institution prior to that institution’s deadline.
The employee must maintain acceptable grades and not drop classes.
The employee must not register before the first day of class each semester.
Marcia observed over several semesters that the same issues occurred each semester resulting in customer (the employee) dissatisfaction. While Marcia was always courteous to the often angry employees she realized an improvement was needed.
The leading issues were:
Not applying for financial aid
Marcia found that the communication between the student and financial aid was being misunderstood. For example: If they were notified that they needed to sign certain papers (considered an “incomplete”) or if they needed to bring documentation like an income tax form, (random audit) that the student was not responding to the request because they thought, “I’ve already done that.” Now they know exactly what is needed to complete the FAFSA.
Not recording the payment data correctly in the business office
Not maintaining acceptable grades
Registering before the first day of class
Not knowing where to register the first day of class
Not being enrolled at ASU or other university teaching institutions prior to submitting the application
Not having approval from the supervisor or department on application
Submitting multiple applications for more than 8 semester credit hours
Lack of using proper name, using nicknames or not addressing formal name changes, and errors in using ID numbers
Filling out the form incorrectly as to what teaching institution to be used
On her own Marcia established a close working relationship with the MCG TAP coordinator. She coordinated anincreased effort between MCG, ASU, TAP applicants and the internal offices of financial aid and the registrar offices for problem applicants in order that they have the best opportunity to resolve any issues that would refrain them from being approved. This reduced the time to resolve issues from weeks to three (3) working days.
Marcia revised the ASU TAP letter to employees to include the link to apply to financial aid, the deadline for applying for TAP and the date to register for class.(Knowledgeable)She shared this with MCG. She increased the number of TAP communications from one to four for each semester.(Responsive) When the approved TAP applications were ready to be delivered to employees she added a red label to each envelope stating where and when to register. She then hand delivered the approved applications to MCG to speed up the process.(Helpful)
These changes had an impact, but issues still caused unhappy customers. Marcia invited a campus lean six sigma green belt to facilitate a brain storming session to identify ways to improve the process. Representatives from Admissions, Registrar, Financial Aid, Business Office, and Human Resources met and created a flow chart of the process. They identified where communications were not effective and where data was missing.
As a result of the brainstorming session two process improvements were implemented. First, a report was created in Banner, which shows everyone who is receiving TAP so records could be reconciled. Second, a plan was put in place for Augusta State representatives to go to MCG each semester and with the MCG TAP coordinator present a short seminar on the TAP program, including becoming enrolled at ASU, applying for financial aid, applying for TAP, and not registering early.(Accessible)
Marcia also placed links on the front page of the ASU Human Resource web page to show the TAP deadlines and to access the TAP policy. (Helpful)
As a result of Marcia’s efforts we have seen an increase in satisfied customers,a steady decline in complaints, and a more timely organized process between institutions and internaldepartments. A general estimation is that she reduced problems from approximately twenty (20) applications to about four (4) per semester.
Marcia has demonstrated a commitment to excellent customer service in the TAP program. While serving our customers and improving the process she has demonstrated that she is courteous, helpful, accessible, responsive, and knowledgeable.