A four-feet-something tot lugging a schoolbag would probably be the last image to pop up in your mind when you hear the word “customer”. But the DAV Public School, New Panvel, has proved some of the greatest truisms of management right. The customer is king - and when it comes to customers, size doesn’t matter. Keep your customer happy, and keep measuring your customer’s happiness. Agreed - these are the basics of customer relationship, and it has almost become infra dig to spew these clichés in the management milieu. What makes the DAV Public School story exceptional is the fact that the school dared to redefine certain concepts long taken for granted.

In a country where education is still largely defined as a one-way flow of learning from teacher to student, the DAV School portrays itself not only as a source of learning but also as a learning organization - an entity that grows through learning. What’s more, the school considers tacit knowledge obtained from customers as the biggest resource for creating a learning organization. The entire gamut of processes from student enrollment to student retention and progression is regarded as an exercise in Customer Relationship Building. For the school management, customer satisfaction data is a crucial metric. While the school actively collects this data through structured questionnaires administered to students and parents, much of this information also comes through informal interactions during parent-teacher meetings, student assessments etc. The school has a systematized complaint management system where the parents can convey their complaints to the teachers, Principal or even the Regional Director through meetings, telephone calls, suggestion box, emails etc. Every complaint is registered, and satisfactory closure of grievances is a mandatory part of the school’s Quality Procedure. Of course, the school manages to traverse the narrow line from customer satisfaction to customer delight through special initiatives - seminars for parents; excursions, talent shows and awards for students and even an annual Grandparents’ Day!  The DAV school follows the ISO standards and has won several quality awards and recognitions.

Moral of the story (and I can think of many):

• Listen to your customer or perish - no matter what business you are in.
• Every organization is a learning organization.
• Management concepts like customer relationship building need not just remain mere jargon - and it doesn’t always take a Fortune 500 giant to put them into practice.