When IT Learns to Listen: Building a Feedback Culture That Transforms the Customer Experience

Higher education IT support teams have long relied on operational metrics like ticket volume, resolution time, and SLA compliance to measure success. Yet these metrics often fail to answer a critical question: how do customers actually experience the service we provide? This session explores how implementing Net Promoter Score (NPS) enables IT organizations to move beyond transactional support toward a more experience-driven, relationship-focused model. NPS is an industry standard measure of customer loyalty that uses a simple survey to provide both benchmarking and qualitative feedback to identify strengths and areas for improvement. Using NPS, we established a benchmark score to define clear goals for improvement within our organization. We also identified the top 10 areas to prioritize, based on survey comments. Being transparent with our customers throughout the entire process, including being open about the results of the survey and openly acknowledging areas for improvement, has allowed us to shift the culture of IT toward a collaborative partnership focused on improving the customer experience. In one year, our NPS score increased by 11 points. By shifting the focus from tickets to relationships, NPS becomes a powerful tool for driving cultural change and aligning IT services with institutional needs. Participants will leave with useful and actionable strategies they can immediately apply within their own higher education support organizations.