By Goh Yi Han

REPUBLIC Polytechnic is not your usual school - it treats its students like customers.

In fact, being 'customer-oriented' is one of its five core values.

The polytechnic even set up a service centre called the One-Stop Centre to attend to its students' needs.

'Customers are the focus of everything we do,' its spokesman said, adding that its staff are appraised based on how customer-oriented they have been.

Its excellent service helped it achieve the highest score among polytechnics here in a recent survey measuring customer satisfaction levels across various industries.

Respondents to the survey, by the Singapore Management University's Institute of Service Excellence, were asked to rate schools in areas such as the quality of service and how well their expectations are met.

The institute's academic director, Dr Marcus Lee, said Republic Polytechnic did well in all aspects surveyed, adding that it was valid to consider students as customers. 'Students are vital. Without them, a school would have to shut down. Measuring student satisfaction is therefore important to education providers.'

This view is shared by Republic Polytechnic's principal and chief executive Yeo Li Pheow: 'Being the newest polytechnic, we were aware that for (the school) to attract more first-choice applicants... we had to strive even harder.'

If students were won over by the benefits the school provided, he added, they would become 'ambassadors' to convince friends and family to choose it too.

So it set out to be customer-oriented from the beginning, he said.

This belief led to the birth of the One-Stop Centre, where students and staff can pay school fees, have their old ez-link cards replaced, or surf the Internet for free at one of several booths.

They can even get help from staff to plan and organise school events.

Current and prospective students can also make enquiries to administrative staff via an online chat system hosted by the centre's website.

'This service makes it more convenient for people to get help without having to be referred elsewhere,' said Mr Darren Ng, the manager of operations at the school's Centre for Professional Development, who had been the One-Stop Centre's manager until last month.

Students interviewed by The Straits Times agreed.

Conservation and hygiene club member Chew Yaojie, 19, said he has found the centre staff to be 'very helpful' in putting up signs whenever his club held events, and publicising them.

'It's quite convenient to be able to pay our fees there,' said 19-year-old third-year biomedical science student Low Jian Hui, who pays his school fees by Nets at the centre. He prefers this to paying by cheque, which he says is more troublesome.

Other steps the polytechnic has taken to serve its staff and students well include an 'open-door policy'. For instance, staff members with ideas or suggestions can e-mail the principal directly.

Lecturers are approachable and can be reached via e-mail for help with any problems, say students.

However, some students feel there is room for improvement in some areas.

Some, such as 19-year-old Cheng Jee Yan, point to long waiting times for computer services, such as the configuration of laptops for accessing the school's network.

The school's spokesman acknowledged this, but explained that this could not be helped as the configuration process is time-consuming and more than 5,000 laptops need to be configured at the start of every school year.

He added that computer helpdesk services remain well-received, with a satisfaction rate of between 97 per cent and 99 per cent of users, based on feedback given by students and staff to the School of Information Systems.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.