11. The Importance of the Client

Before, was discussed client identification in education, examining the pupil/parent relationship and the concept of the wider community as a client of the school. The way that clients have been perceived by schools to date may be considerably different from the way that a commercial or industrial company would regard a client. While in the business world the idea of being client orientated or of 'putting the customer first' is commonplace, such an attitude can seem somewhat out of place in education. The culture of schools has traditionally centered on their being the source of knowledge and their transmitting this knowledge to a captive audience. The result has been a product-orientation where knowledge and skills have predominated. However, much can be learned from commerce and industry. Raising these issues and applying some of the business concepts can provide a useful stimulus to the educational debate concerning the ways in which we think about clients.

The following statements should provide a discussion framework:

*         The client is the most important person in the school and the quality of    the contact, in person, in writing or by telephone is the key to a successful relationship.

*         A client comes to us for education; we should provide this (the service) in a way that delivers a professional product which satisfies both the wants and needs of the client.

*         The client is not something that is additional to the school; without the client there is no school.

*         Clients do not interrupt our work; they are our work.

*         Whereas the client may be dependent on us for providing an education, we are dependent on the client for our job.

If used with staff groups, this sort of thinking is quite powerful in that it enables them to address the way in which they perceive clients and the importance of client relationship to the school. Such challenges to existing patterns of thinking are necessary in order to move schools into becoming market-orientated. Brent Davies and Linda Ellison (1997, p32) does not argue that we should forget the traditional values of schools in favor of just considering clients' wants, but it argues very strongly that the knowledge and skills in the schools should be orientate both to meet those wants, and to meet the identified needs of the clients. This means that we must rethink our view of the client and adopt a client-orientation. The school and the client are not separate; the clients are part of the school, if not the school itself.

Responding to clients

Clients expect to be treated seriously, courteously, with concern and with problem-solving, rather than blame-attaching, attitudes. In industry, staff at all levels undertake training on how to deal with clients on a face-to-face basis and on the telephone, but in education we are usually left to learn by trial and error. Developing experience this way has, on the majority of occasions, worked quite well but there are exceptions. When it does not work well there are problems with the trial-and-error approach - it can be a 'trial' for the client because we make errors! A good example of how we treat clients is provided by examining what happens when the telephone is answered. In the response, 'Good morning, Brentwich School. Can I help you?' or just 'Yes'? Do we respond 'The headteacher is working with children and we always give that priority in this school, but she will telephone you later' or the head teacher's not around. Can you try later?'

Another example is found in the management of parents' meetings. How do we train teachers to communicate with parents so that the teachers' expectations and parents' expectations meet and both go away satisfied with the encounter? The truth is that we spend little or, more often, no time in training staffing meeting the clients' expectations and handling the communication exchange with them. Yet in business 'customer care' courses are commonplace.

Clients expect their problems to be solved and do not expect to be told that there are so many internal procedures which prevent a solution. While, in the real world, it is not possible to meet the often contradictory wants of different groups of parents, the attitude with which staff tackles the problems and look for positive solutions is often the factor which parents remember. This is the perspective that must be developed in staff in an effective marketing culture is to be established.