If your institution is still in the mindset of refusing to think of and treat your students as customers, then I’ll wager your retention rate could definitely stand improvement.

In their book Rules to Break and Laws to Follow, authors Don Peppers and Martha Rogers observe that customers have good memories. They add, “Customer trust can be destroyed at once by a major service problem, or it can be undermined, one day at a time, with a thousand small demonstrations of incompetence.”

A study conducted by the Research Institute of America determined that only 4 percent of unhappy customers bother to complain, and that for every complaint, 24 others don’t make the effort. The report stated that each unhappy customer tells their tale of woe to at least nine others. And 68 percent of those who quit doing business with an organization do so because of company indifference. The study concluded that it takes at least 12 positive interactions to cancel out one negative experience.

As you know, it requires less effort and resources to retain students than to recruit new ones. What is your institution doing to ensure your students are having positive experiences? And what process do you have in place to identify and quickly resolve the negative ones? Publishing a student complaint hotline or an e-mail address alone won’t cut it. Instead of focusing on those 4 percent who seek you out, make it your business to find those 96 percent before they decide the grass is greener at that other college.