GSC focuses on improving 'customer service'

OAKWOOD - Gainesville State College is answering the call of University System of Georgia (USG) Chancellor Erroll B. Davis Jr. in asking the 38,000 faculty and staff employed by Georgia's 35 public colleges and universities to provide faster, friendlier, more efficient service to the USG's "customers," including more than 253,500 students.

In coordination with Gov. Sonny Perdue's launch of the state's new "Customer Service Improvement Initiative" in which all state agencies have united in an effort to make Georgia the best-managed state in the country, Davis announced that every USG campus is poised to implement a plan for improving customer service beginning Aug. 1.

"Each Georgia citizen who walks through our door for a government service is an opportunity," said Governor Sonny Perdue. "It is my intention that Georgia government employees will take advantage of those opportunities, showing citizens that we respect and value their time."

"The campus-based customer service improvement plans that will be launched in August will begin to create a culture that places more emphasis on customer service," Davis stated. "In line with the Governor's goal of achieving the best-managed state government, we intend to provide a model of service unparalleled in public higher education. Many of our faculty and staff already place our students' needs first, but we need to institutionalize this practice and really own it."

This past spring, Davis named Jim Flowers, special assistant to the USG's chief information officer, to serve as the University System's representative on the Governor's Customer Service Team, where he was charged with developing a customer service improvement plan for the University System. The chancellor also directed USG presidents to appoint "Customer Service Champions" to launch, guide and manage improvements that will make the services provided by each campus "Faster, Friendlier and Easier" to access.

Gainesville State College President Martha T. Nesbitt has named Leora Myers, Assistant to the President as GSU's Customer Service Champion. Customer service champions will work closely with their campus presidents, who