Ideas, information and industry news for collegiate retailers

Beth Gallagher:                
Today I'm at the University of California, Davis. I am seated with Jason Lorgan, Executive Director of Student Affairs, and Aaron Ochoa, Director of UC Davis Stores. We're here to have a conversation about building campus relationships, including experimenting with customer service programs. Before we dive into our discussion, will you please each share your collegiate retail backgrounds? Let's start with Jason.

Jason Lorgan:                    
Okay, thanks, Beth. I'm happy to be here. I started my retail collegiate career in 1993 at San Diego State University. From there, I joined the Follett Higher Education Group in an off-campus store at San Diego State, and then for an on-campus store at Golden Gate University before I came to UC Davis in 2002. I've now been here for 18 years.

Beth Gallagher:                
Wow, thank you. Aaron, your turn. What's your background?

Aaron Ochoa:                    
Thanks, Beth. I, too, am very happy to be here. I actually started within my collegiate career as a student employee. I had my undergrad at University of Nevada, Reno, where I was a student employee there first, starting in 2000 in the computer sales department. Then from there, was offered a position full-time and then moved into the course materials space. I spent a majority of my time there in the course materials space, and ultimately worked from a buyer's position, up through an associate director position, overseeing course materials, technology and school supplies. Was then offered a position here at UC Davis about three years ago as a director of the stores.

Beth Gallagher:                
Jason, I've heard before, your guiding philosophy for the store experimenting with new programs. It's like the Nike slogan, Just Do It, why is that, and how did you create the culture where this is acceptable on your campus?

Jason Lorgan:                    
Well, like with many things, I think it was originally done through trial and error. We sort of landed in a place where we understand a little bit better about how innovating is acceptable within a higher education environment. Probably the biggest piece of knowledge we learned along the way is that when you're trying something new, it's extremely helpful to attach the word pilot to the end of it because, particularly at an institution such as UC Davis, which is a research institution. We're always challenging the way things are done. That's what all of our scientists do.

When we sort of put our role on campus into the same context, that we're challenging the status quo just like our researchers do and creating a pilot program, the word pilot creates a certain level of comfort. Often when someone is trying something new, the biggest fear is what if it doesn't go well. When you attach the word pilot to it, you are sort of suggesting, right at the outset, that if this doesn't go well, we will either alter it or cancel it. This isn't necessarily a permanent program. So, even when we are launching what we feel is going to be a permanent program, we have found it very useful to use the word pilot.

Beth Gallagher:                
That's a great way to make your campus comfortable. At the same time, you're showing your store as an innovator.

Jason Lorgan:                    
Yes.

Beth Gallagher:                
Aaron, why is it important for college stores to build strong student and campus relationships?

Aaron Ochoa:                    
I think it's very important to build those relationships for a couple of reasons. One, you have to remember who your audience is. We have these students, and they're coming in. That's who our clientele is. We need to understand who they are and what they need. One of the things that we were able to do for such a long time is, as a monopoly, we were able to just have product, and then students would come in and buy, and that was it. Now, with there being so many different options for students to get at least their course materials, and even some of these other products that are out there online. We need to understand what they need. What are they utilizing their resources for outside of the college industry, or outside of campus in general? Without knowing them or getting a chance to understand them, there's no way that we can actually serve them.

Now, moving on to the faculty and staff and the administration folks on campus, that's a little bit different, too. Ultimately, we need their support. Anytime we're doing a new project, or even as we're trying to get course materials from faculty, we need them to help us do that. If we can provide ourselves as “hey, we are the folks that are here to help you,” and then give them a face to a name, I think that's the biggest piece of the puzzle. Because as you go through these processes, if you give them someone who they can see, and they understand who you are, it's no longer the bookstore is reaching to me to ask for this. It's Aaron is reaching out to ask for this. That's a much different conversation to be had at that point in time. Now I've now created a situation where I am on a first name basis with someone, and they're more willing to at least accept the conversation, or ultimately help me when I need it.

Beth Gallagher:                
Anything you'd like to add to that, Jason?

Jason Lorgan:                    
One of the things that I like to say to our staff is “Can you tell me about the center for student involvement?” Anybody could use this same strategy with the department on campus that's physically closest to them. For us, it's the Center for Student Involvement. Their offices are right down the hallway from ours. Very often, our staff assumes that everyone on campus knows what's happening within the bookstore. So, I usually counter that by saying, "Can you tell me what's happening in the Center for Student Involvement?" They basically say, "I have no idea what's happening in the Center for Student Involvement." "Well, what makes you think people know what's happening in our operation? If there is a department that's right next to us, and we see all of those people every day, and we don't know what's going on there." I think it becomes very apparent why it's important to get out on campus and talk about what we do.

Beth Gallagher:                
That's a great question. That's something that any college store can ask their staff to test if the relationships are there.

Jason Lorgan:                    
Yes.

Beth Gallagher:                
Okay, let's get into some of the actual programs. What are some of the store events that you've designed to build your relations with the student body and campus? The first one that comes to my mind, that maybe we could talk about, is SmartStart.

Jason Lorgan:                    
That sounds great. I'll take this one and let Aaron take the other one since this was before his time here. I can talk about how it started, and Aaron has continued with the program since he's been here. This was actually a student employee-driven program. When we think back that was sort of the beginning of eCommerce for bookstores. We called it textbook reservations. It was sort of like the birth of store pickup, but it was done in a little bit different way because we couldn't necessarily allow people to select individual books. We gave them their entire schedule worth of books.

When our students watched us doing that, they thought it was strange that our differential advantage was that we existed on the campus and we were connected to the campus, yet we were acting similarly to an anonymous online retailer. Instead of engaging with new students, we just handed them a box of books. They said, "That's really impersonal." So, they said, "Why don't you take advantage of your differential advantage and the fact that you're here, you know UC Davis, student employees have taken the courses that the students who are purchasing the books have taken and can ask questions."

That was really the birth of the idea. When dorm move-in weekend happened, we created an event called SmartStart. We invited all of the students and their families, or whoever was dropping them off, to come into the store. We had a whole bunch of student employees, staffed more so than we would normally be staffed because we knew it was going to be a busy event. When they came into the store, we immediately asked each new student and their family if we could help them. Then, sort of acted as personal textbook shoppers.

In most traditional K-12 environments, your books are handed to you, and then you turn them in at the end. Then all of a sudden, they come to college and it's a totally different experience. I can remember back to my freshman experience. I was very confused about what I was supposed to do. I was sort of asking my other freshman friends what we should do, and it was like none of us knew what to do, right. So, we thought, we have a lot of student employees who are upperclassmen, who have been there, have experienced it and students are also a lot more comfortable talking to their peer versus somebody else. So, that was sort of how the whole program began. It's been very successful for us and we continue using the program today.

Beth Gallagher:                
That came from a student idea.

Jason Lorgan:                    
It came from a student idea. It was a student-developed program, and actually, the students really run almost the entire thing.

Beth Gallagher:                
Excellent.

Beth Gallagher:                
Aaron, what's your program, Late Night Shopping at the Campus Store, and what was that a solution to?

Aaron Ochoa:                    
Late Night Shopping actually does a couple of things for us. Originally what it was, was a way for us to help draw out how long our lines were. What we did is we said, "Okay, well, we have these huge lines during our operation hours of 8 a.m. to 6:00 p.m..” So, we thought, "Well, is there a way that we can make it so the students aren't waiting in line as long?" First thought was, let's extend out those hours, so we did. Ultimately, we've extended out our first two days of rush from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., but we've actually reduced it down to 9 p.m. now. That gave us an extra three hours to allow students to come in. We're still seeing the same amount of customers, but we're just seeing them over a longer period of time.

Some of the incentives that we offer during that timeframe is we actually offered a 10 percent discount to students, including a discount on course materials, which that was the big factor. It's during rush. We want them to come in, but how are we going to get them to come in late? Nobody wants to come in after class is over and stay around to do that. However, when we give them a little bit of incentive, we say, "Hey, we're going to give you 10 percent off, not just your binders and clothing and so forth," but when you're actually saying, "10 percent off of textbooks," that is a reason for students to want to stay and come in a little bit later. Again, it allows us to kind of shift those students to a later time and do that.

Logistically, it helps us from that perspective. It gives the students an opportunity to get some cheap textbooks, which is always a benefit to us, too. It actually shows that, "Hey, this store is trying to do something for us when it comes to the course materials and the course materials costs." That's kind of what Late Night has been for us.

Realistically, the only reason we changed the 10:00 p.m. closing hour to the 9:00 p.m. had to do with the bus system that runs here in Davis. The last buses leave at 10  p.m., so if the students weren't done with a transaction and out, and missed those buses, then they would have to find some other way to get home. So, that was the reason that we reduced it down to 9:00 p.m. That gave the students who were coming in to purchase course materials and our student employees the ability to catch their buses so they can go home in the evenings.

Beth Gallagher:                
Oh, great idea then, for all around.

Aaron Ochoa:                    
All around, yeah.

Beth Gallagher:                
Your store has also gotten into other areas that people might not initially think as being under the store. For example, health and wellness has become a focus of some of your new initiatives, like Relax and Restore. Can you explain that?

Aaron Ochoa:                    
Sure, sure. Relax and Restore came from another industry person or piece. There was an article in College Store Magazine two years ago that talked about wellness. It talked about some of the stresses that students are going through, such as when they're going through finals, what are their worries, what do those stresses do to them at that time. We're talking about anxiety, we're talking about fatigue, we're talking about multiple things, including their mental health, in terms of their overall wellness. So, they talked about, "Well, what are some things that campuses could do to help alleviate that?" We took kind of that in stride and said, "Okay, well, what can we do as a store to help students get through this finals time, that we know is a stressful time for them, and show them that we care about them as students, and them as people, not customers?"

There are a couple very important things that go on here. When we do our Relax and Restore event, there is no sales. Everything is giveaways. We give away free Scantrons. We give away free blue books. We give away pencils that say good luck on finals. We have vendors that donate snacks, so we ensure that we have some healthy snacks available that we can give out for free. We do different events, some tactile events, some art events. Just some things that we've kind of read over that says when someone can take five minutes away from a stressful situation and play with Legos that could help them relax.

One of the big things that we do, and probably the most impactful one, at least it seems that way because we get the biggest turnout, is we work with a group off campus that's called Therapy Fluffies. It allows us to bring in puppies, and everybody loves puppies. Even when students are just walking around and they see a dog, you want to pet them, you want to see them. But when you're in that mindset of all I'm doing is studying, all I'm doing is thinking about these classes, all I'm doing is trying to get through this, and you have an opportunity to step away and take a breather, and pet a dog, get a free snack, don't have to worry about buying Scantrons or blue books, all of that helps. The whole point of that, of the program itself too, is, again, to show the students that we care about them as people.

That's one of the things that's very, very difficult. As a store, we have a negative image. We've always had a negative image. We are the retailer on campus. As viewed, we are that group that takes money from you, ultimately. That's kind of how that is seen. When you get to campus, everything is paid for, everything is included in that big word that we call tuition, except course materials. So, that's the one other thing that you've got to pull your wallet out and buy again. So, we kind of have, over time, become that negative entity.

There's many times where we are working on a program and, say, the library is working on a very similar program. When you talk to students, or even staff or faculty about it, from the store's perspective, it's "Oh, what is the store trying to get out of me now?" But when you hear it from the library, like, "Oh my god, it's the greatest thing ever because the library's doing it." So, this is one of those ways to help us kind of move ourselves out of that, "Hey, we're not just here to be your retailer. We're here because we care about you." That's kind of where the Relax and Restore event is coming from.

Beth Gallagher:                
Well, and that ties into the trend of younger consumers wanting to form relationships with companies that are seen as caring and philanthropic and doing something for the good. So, you're tying into your students’ care, with also a concern that they would have with any retailer in general. A lot of them want to know what good is a retailer doing that they're buying from.

Another hot topic on campus is student food security and how that ties into learning outcomes and retaining students. Your store has stepped in on campus and helped to address this topic. What has your store done?

Aaron Ochoa:                    
The biggest thing is we were the first entity on campus to be able to accept EBT, which is, in California, we call them SNAP benefits, Calfresh. For lack of a better term, it's food stamps. Going back, that is what the term was then, and that's ultimately what it is. That allowed us a couple of things. We understand that 60 percent of our students are on full financial aid. The UC system has a very robust financial aid package that helps them when it comes to their academics and paying tuition and so forth. But there's nothing in there that helps them pay for food. Within that, we realized, if we've had 60 percent of our students who can't spend one cent to pay for their education, the State of California has determined that, then how do we expect them to pay for other things? Housing, getting to school, putting gas in their car, and then food, amongst other things. That was kind of our point there. How do we help that? How do we make sure that these students have this other piece?

Since there are federal programs out there that allow them to utilize funds, we figured well, we need to be able to accept those funds. We're saying, "Hey, we're willing to accept the funds. We provide the types of food that they're requesting." We now accept it in two different locations, one at our main campus location within the Memorial Union, and then the second one, which is over at the ARC, which is our Activities and Recreation Center, or the gym. They have it there. Interestingly enough, as we go through that, what we see is about 20 percent of our overall sales end up being from EBT customers. So, that tells us that we're doing something right.

In one of the store locations, it's about a $1.2 million dollar store, and about 20 to 22 percent of that is the EBT program customer. What we're trying to also see now is okay, that's 20 percent. But if we're saying 60 percent of our students don't have the means to do the things, that means there's still a 40 percent gap of students, who either have not applied for and received these benefits, and potentially can.

Campus itself has put together a Basic Needs group that is two doors down from us. One of their main objectives is to make sure students know that these services are available to them and to help them apply through the process. We work very closely with them so that they know, "Hey, student, when you apply through the process, this is how you do it. And once you receive the benefits, you can utilize them here." That is kind of the whole point about trying to be able to work with campus on those pieces to figure out how can we ensure that these students have the food they need to be successful because, like you said, if you're worried about where your next meal is going to come, you cannot focus on learning whatever it is you're trying to learn. So, we need to make sure that the students have that ability.

Beth Gallagher:                
Great idea. How do you get the word out? Do you utilize social media? What platforms are you on?

Aaron Ochoa:                    
We do use social media. We have a marketing team that does that for us. We work with them in terms of which events we have and how they are going to be displayed.  We use Instagram and Facebook most often. We used to use Twitter. However, we've actually stepped away from using Twitter recently because what we were seeing is that Twitter was being used more so for kind of informational pieces and event type pieces rather than the retail side of the house. As the stores, as a whole, it just seemed like it wasn't the right place for us to be in terms of that. But we do use Instagram. Instagram stories are actually one of the big things that we are utilizing because it allows us to still stay at the top of the feed when that happens, rather than just a post, because we understand that when you just do it as a post, it gets buried in everything else that's happening for everyone.

Really, what's been interesting for us is we still get the biggest bang for our buck out of email blasts. We do a monthly email blast that has information about not only what's happening in the store, but also what's happening on campus. It allows us to then talk about things like, okay, if there's a football game going on, or the 5K's happening, it then allows us to show those other campus entities, in which we're partners with, that we're trying to help promote their pieces too. It just helps to kind of bridge that gap. For us, yeah, we do have all these events on social media, and, of course, we have them on our website too, so that you can see them there. However, I think the big ones are email blasts and then the Instagram pieces.

Beth Gallagher:                
You wouldn't happen to know your click to open ratio for your emails, would you, or your average?

Aaron Ochoa:                    
I don't, but I'd be glad to get you that information.

Beth Gallagher:                
Oh, that would be great to find out, sure. The other thing I would say is, with you having that email list, those are people who have signed on to be emailed. And the other thing about it is we've seen social media platforms come and go. Remember Friendster, MySpace ... We don't know if all the current platforms will remain, or if they'll stay in the form they're in, but I would say having your email list is invaluable. Because no matter what happens to the platforms, you're going to have those people to contact directly.

Aaron Ochoa:                    
Correct. Yeah, very much so.

Beth Gallagher:                
What has been the student and campus administration's reaction to your different programs and the new initiatives that you've gone into?

Aaron Ochoa:                    
Sure. It's interesting because when... We'll use Relax and Restore because that's a fun one to talk about when we see the students. There's lots of times... we're doing the tabling, and as we have all of our products there, like the free snacks, and the Scantrons and other things. The pencils even say good luck on finals, from UC Davis Stores. We have a tablecloth that says UC Davis Stores.

Our students come and they look and say, "Who are you?" And then we tell them. They kind of look at us like, "You're the stores?" And we're like, "Yeah." "Oh, okay. Well, thank you," like they weren't expecting it. So, I think that's one of those positive things when you're like, "Okay, then we are making that difference. We're making that change. We're changing their mindset to go, 'Okay, we're not just here again to take their money or whatnot,' we're here to ensure that they're being successful. And we're here to help them as students.” So, that part has been very, very good.

In terms of feedback from administration and faculty on these programs, some of them are very specific to the student. We report up through Student Affairs, so I think that's very important for college stores to understand, is depending on which line you report up, you have different goals and set forth before you. Since we come up through Student Affairs, again, working with things like food insecurities and ensuring that the students have enough food to eat, and their well-being. All these things are important because that's what's important to Student Affairs as a whole. If we reported up a different line, perhaps we would have some other goals that are set forth. Not to say that those things still aren't important, but that's just not where we are. As we go talking through the administrative lens... again, we're looking at it through the Student Affairs lens. From that perspective, we're right in line with where we need to be.

Beth Gallagher:                
What are your suggestions for stores that may be listening that are trying to think about how to better build their campus relationships, or expand their customer service offerings, particularly for those stores out there that might not feel as well-resourced as Davis?

Aaron Ochoa:                    
There are a couple of things. I think the simplest one is to just get out there. Get out there, hit the pavement. It's difficult. And I say it's difficult because I don't think any of us are trained as salespeople or anything, so we don't understand that aspect of things, but we get to know people on a regular basis. So, I would say figure out who it is that you want to ultimately start building a relationship with first. Is it the library? Is it ATS, Academic Technologies? Is it a faculty member? Is it a department? Is it a dean? Is it an administrator? Whomever it is, and make the effort to say, "Hey, let's go out and let's meet them."

One of the benefits I can say is, if you don't know what to do, if you're going to call a meeting and you don't know what to talk about, offer to take them to lunch. Offer to take them out for coffee, because that does a couple of things. If you take them out to lunch, even if you have nothing to say, you can talk about the menu, you can talk about the décor, you can talk about anything else.

Beth Gallagher:                
This is sounding familiar, like rep training.

Aaron Ochoa:                    
Yes, that's what it is. Or, again, take them out to coffee. Make it more personal than work related. Then you can start to build that rapport with them. Once you've kind of built that rapport, then, again, next time a question comes up, or next time you need something, it's not the bookstore asking. It's you asking. That's much, much different. So, that's one piece. Again, you can just start with one person or one department or one — it doesn't have to be the whole campus. I currently am going to every single faculty department meeting, sitting down with the faculty for about 15 to 20 minutes in their meeting saying, "This is what the program is. This is how it's going to affect the students. This is how it can potentially affect you. Do you have any questions?"

The reason for that is, questions are going to come up, and I need them to have a face. I need them to say, "Oh, I remember Aaron said that if something happens, I can call him." Yep, that's exactly it. I want them to know that, and I want them to think that, and I want them to know that I'm there for them for that purpose, rather than, "Oh, well, the bookstore screwed this up," or, "Oh, the bookstore said that that was going to happen. I don't know how to deal with this." They have a face, they know who to contact, and they know that we're going to take care of them. So, that's one piece of the puzzle.

The other piece to talk about customer service is find a third party to help keep you in check. So, there's an accountability issue that we tend to have. We all are busy. We all are trying to get things done. But when you have somebody who you have to talk to on a regular basis, maybe it's quarterly, maybe it's monthly, to basically gut check you, to say, "Are you doing this right," then there's a benefit.

We happen to have a company that we use that does like a secret shopper. Each month, all of our departments are secret shopped, and then we get a report back. We tell them, "We want you to shop us on these things," customer service wise. It's everything from did someone approach you within the first five minutes that you came into the store, did someone say hello, were they well groomed, did they have a name tag on, did they have knowledge of the product? If so, did they suggest something if we didn't have it? Multiple things like that. So, monthly, we get that. That's kind of our gut check to say, "Okay, if we got 100s all this month, that's awesome, that's great. We want to continue to do that." That's not how it started. We were getting 30s and 50s and 72s and so forth.

Now, every once in a while, when we do get a bad one, then we can use that as a learning tool for that particular student. We can say, "Hey, student x, you were shopped last week. This is what came back. Just so you know, here are the things we need you to do." Sometimes they're things like we need you to come out from behind the register to greet your customer. We need you to walk them over to the product, not point. We need you to make sure that you're smiling and saying good morning and saying hello. Not just can I help you. If you're on the clock, you need to make sure you're wearing a name tag. There are all these little things that we can use, not only for us, to make sure that we're doing the right thing, but then we can use it as teaching moments later on for the students.

It requires some resources, but I'm willing to bet, most institutions have some sort of business school, or marketing department, or something where you can reach out to maybe those faculty members and say, "Hey, we have a student project for you. Would your class be willing to build this for us. If so, then have them come in and shop and we'll give them a $25 limit that they can spend in the store every time they do it. And they keep whatever it is that they get."

So, it builds an incentive for the students who are building the program to want to come in, not only use it as maybe a professional reference, but they get to keep a product. It gives them something that they can now keep and take home, and it's a payment, for lack of a better term, for coming in and doing the shop. So, there's a way that you can still do these things and basically integrate your campus into it, too. You don’t have to pay a third party to help you do it, but you can still get the same outcome. I would say that could be a way to handle it for those stores that maybe don't have the same type of resources that we have here at Davis.

Beth Gallagher:                
Great. Well, I am sure that other college stores have found what you shared today inspirational and also actionable, so thanks to you and to Jason Lorgan, he had to depart a little early, for participating today and answering my questions.

Aaron Ochoa:                    
Of course, my pleasure. Thank you so much, Beth.