The Heart of Customer Experience is Happiness

In the happiness-centric economy, businesses are aggressively seeking differentiated customer experience as a way to build customer loyalty and competitive advantage over their competitors. The types of customer experience staged by organisations can be categorised into: transactional, relational, experiential and transformational. However, at the core of the customer experience is the emotional dimension and it is about the “HEART” which stands for Happiness, Emotions, Awareness, Relation and Trust. as illustrated in the diagram below.

Happiness. Customer experience is about delivering happiness. A study done by Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University shows that experiential purchases bring more happiness than things as experiences satisfy higher order needs in social connectedness and vitality – a feeling of being alive. Unlike material objects, people don’t get bored of happy memories. Leading experience-centric organisations have adopted “happiness” in their commercials and products. For example, Coca Cola launched the “open happiness” global campaign in 2009 and has appointed happiness ambassadors to seek out what makes people happy in 206 countries. 

Emotions. Customer experience is about emotions since happiness is one of the six basic human emotions besides anger, disgust, fear, sadness and surprise. An emotion is a sensation of varied intensity manifested in our body triggered by both internal and external events which drives us to act in certain ways.  Emotions play an important role in our life experiences. In the paper “Customer Experience: The Next Competitive Battleground” by Beyond Philosophy, 69 per cent of all consumers surveyed said that emotions account for over half of their customer experience. A brain-imaging study led by Benedetto De Martino of University College London supports the notion that emotion rules over logic in decision making. Organisations, therefore, have to satisfy their customers’ emotional needs, if they want to win their hearts.

Awareness. Awareness of our own emotions as well as the emotions of our customers is important in building and maintaining healthy customer relationships. Awareness is the ability to identify and recognise emotions through both verbal and non-verbal cues displayed by us and our customers. It heightens the sensitivity of emotional issues and gives us the ability to respond positively to the actions and behaviours of our customers with the purpose of delivering happiness in customer experience. Emotions are often triggered through our five senses (touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste), past experiences and memories. 

Relation. Relation is about the act of relating the feelings of our customers back to them. It involves the ability to observe and listen to our own and our customers’ emotions. Observation is about being non-judgmental. Listening empathically to customers helps us to understand how to serve our customers better, it also helps us to build and sustain positive relationship with them. The essence of empathic listening is to listen from the heart, which opens the doorway to understanding, caring and empathy. It requires listeners to refrain from judging the speaker and place themselves in the other’s position in attempting to see things from his point of view. It involves:

•          Paying full attention to the speaker’s total communication including body language

•          Being empathic to the speaker’s feelings and thoughts and suspending one’s own thoughts and feelings

•          Acknowledging and responding to the speaker with the purpose of trying to understand his point of view.

Trust. Part of the empathy process in relation is to establish trust and rapport with our customers. Jennifer Dunn and Maurice Schweitzer from the University of Pennsylvania conducted a study on the influence of emotion on trust and they found that incidental emotions significantly influence trust in unrelated settings. Emotions with positive valence such as happiness and gratitude increase trust, and emotions with negative valence such as anger decreases trust. Stephen M.R. Covey in his book, “The Speed of Trust” says that high trust increases speed and lower the cost of doing business. In personal life, high trust brings about greater enjoyment and better quality of life. To establish and build trust in all relationships, he advocates the following 13 behaviours:

1.    Talk straight

2.    Demonstrate respect

3.    Create transparency

4.    Right wrongs

5.    Show loyalty

6.    Deliver results

7.    Get better

8.    Confront reality

9.    Clarify expectations

10. Practice accountability

11. Listen first

12. Keep commitments

13. Extend trust

22nd AUN Actual Quality Assessment at De La Salle University

The 22nd AUN Actual Quality Assessment for programme level at De La Salle University was held from 11 - 13 November 2013 at Manila, Philippines. The assessment of the Bachelor of Arts in International Studies programme was led by Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin with Prof. Dr. Hanna H. Bachtiar-Iskandar from Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia. The other programmes being assessed were Mathematics, Statistics and Civil Engineering.

AUN-QA Assessors Training Workshop (1st Public Run)

The first public run of AUN-QA Assessors Training Workshop was held from 7 to 13 November in Manila, The Philippines. The workshop was uniquely designed to give a "hyper-real" experience by incorporating both "simulated assessment environment" in the classroom and "live assessment" observation at De La Salle University.

The workshop aims to equip participants with the essential competencies to carry out an AUN-QA programme assessment. It covers the following learning outcomes:

• Apply the PDCA approach in quality assessment;

• Prepare a quality assessment

• Conduct a desktop assessment for a programme;

• Conduct a site assessment including stakeholders’ interviews, site tour and documentation review; and

• Write assessment feedback, presentation and report

The workshop was jointly organised by ASEAN University Network (AUN) and De La Salle University. It was attended by 24 participants from Universities in Brunei, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines.

The 6As of Establishing a Quality Assurance (QA) Office

An university should consider the 6As factors when setting up a QA office to ensure the sustainability of its quality assurance system.

Alignment

In establishing a QA office, it is critical that the mission of the QA office should be aligned to the university’s vision, mission, strategies, and objectives. As the mission specifies what purpose the QA office is to achieve and what value it is to produce, a lack of alignment between the QA office mission and the broader organisation goals will create misfit and confusion. Alignment creates opportunity for the QA office to demonstrate its capabilities and activities that are critical to the success of the organisation, thereby, forging buy-in and visibility.

Approach

The approach to quality assurance practices within a university may be centralised, decentralised, or a combination of both, depending on the organisational structure, culture, strategy, and resources. The approach sets the functional activities of the QA office and its involvement in academic quality and non-academic quality. 

Adaptation

An organisation has a choice of developing its own QA model or framework; or adapting an established and recognised QA framework. The levels of quality assurance framework that an organisation can adopt and adapt to are as follows:

• International (e.g. ISO 9001)
• Regional (e.g. AUN-QA models)
• National (e.g. National Quality Model)
• Institutional (e.g. system model, PDCA model, etc.)
• A combination of the above.

The factors that determine the level and type of quality assurance framework rest on the organisation strategy as well as international, regional, and national accreditation policies and climate. For example, a university with a mandatory national accreditation regulation will have to adopt its national QA framework. A university that exports its education programmes overseas will have to adhere to accreditation policies beyond its national boundary. Developing a QA model by the university on its own should be the last resort as it is costly and time consuming. Harmonising the developed QA framework with other recognised and established framework and getting it accepted by the university community and regulators may be a challenge.

Application

Application of an adapted QA framework depends on the stage of development and maturity of a university, its faculties, and programmes. Generally, QA framework can be applied at the following various levels:

• University Level
• Faculty Level
• Programme Level
• Geographical Level
• Agency Level (franchise)

It is often difficult to have a blanket application of the QA framework to all parts of the university in one “big bang” due to the changing educational landscape and rapid advancement in science and technology. A progressive application approach is a more realistic choice in most cases.

Accountability

Accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, decisions, and policies, covering the administration, governance, and implementation of QA practices as defined within the scope of the role of the QA office, academic departments, and non-academic departments. It mainly covers the following factors: 

• Ownership and governance
• Key performance indicators
• Accreditation/certification
• Transparency of decisions and policies
• Information availability and sharing

Advocacy
Advocacy involves the pursuit of QA and educational excellence and the active support of its cause by the QA office and its advocates. The QA office should lead the university in its pursuit of QA and educational excellence and collaborating with local, regional, and international QA bodies, to harmonise and advance QA practices. Advocacy activities include:

• Leadership
• Promote best QA practices
• Stakeholder engagement
• Capability development
• Continuous development and improvement
• External collaboration

The IDEAL Way to Internal Quality Assurance (IQA)

The approach to IQA can be crystallized in five phases namely: Initiation, Development, Execution, Assessment, and Leverage or in short, IDEAL. 

Initiation Phase

The first phase sets the strategic directions of the IQA initiative. Often this phase involves the setting of quality committee(s) and QA office, as well as the  appointment of key quality officers in the organisation to implement the plans and activities.

Development Phase

The development phase involves the development or search for QA model(s) that can fit into the vision, mission, culture, and varied development of the organisation. In the development of the QA model, alignment to national, regional and international quality assurance framework should be considered. The elements of the IQA include strategy, people, system and culture.

Execution Phase

This phase involves the execution of the IQA plans developed in previous phase. The execution of the plan can be implemented progressively and incrementally starting from a pilot run or in one "big bang". The approach to implement the plans depends on the readiness of the organisation and its stakeholders, resources, and risks.

Assessment Phase

This phase involves evaluating the effectiveness of the IQA implemented and identifying areas for improvement. It builds on the earlier achievements and enhances the IQA plans and activities of the organisation. 

Leverage Phase

This phase involves sustaining and extending QA activities to other parts of the organisation as well as outside the organisation. Collaboration with other organisations and QA bodies to search for best practices, cooperation and recognition.

20th AUN Actual Quality Assessment at Universitas Gadjah Mada

The 20th AUN Actual Quality Assessment for programme level at Universitas Gadjah Mada was held from 24 - 26 October 2013 at Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The assessment of the English study programme was led by Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin with Ms Nguyen Thi My Ngoc from Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City. The other programmes being assessed were Animal Science & Industry, Dentistry and Legal Science.

The AUN Assessment Team for English Department

Opening and Closing Meetings

Site Tour

20th AUN Actual Quality Assessment

ASEAN-QA Stakeholders Conference 2013

The ASEAN-QA project was kicked off in 2011 with the objective of building capacity in quality assurance among participating universities and national quality agencies in ASEAN. The partnering organisations of this project were AQAN, AUN, DAAD, HRK, ENQA, SEAMEO RIHED.

In the project, the Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) Group held 3 workshops in Bangkok, Potsdam and Ho Chi Minh City. The final outcome was the site assessment of 21 educational programmes in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Philippines and Vietnam. Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin was the lead assessor in T1, T19 and T20 site assessments in Vietnam National University-Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Universiti Utara Malaysia (Malaysia) and Universitas Indonesia (Indonesia) respectively.

At the ASEAN-QA Stakeholders Conference held from 9 to 11 October 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand, Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin shared the Site Visit Case Study of Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Telecommunications at International University - Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City. He was also a member of the panel discussion for the site visit case study.

The conference was attended by about 100 delegates from the partnering organisations, IQA and EQA trainers and participants, representatives from participating universities and national quality agencies, and peers from Europe and ASEAN.

Panel Discussion of Site Visits

Work Group for IQA Capacity Building

Work Group for IQA Capacity Building - Role Play

Delegates of ASEAN-QA Stakeholders Conference