Inspired by this recent post by Kate Carruthers, “Customer service and student support – QUT gets it” (and I can confirm that Kaylene Matheson in the law school is, in fact, excellent), I would like to share my own experience of being the beneficiary of exemplary service by QUT staff.

I am currently applying to universities in the US and the UK to undertake postgraduate study overseas sometime in the near future. The application process has at times seemed unnecessarily painful and complicated. The latest in my series of tiresome hurdles was to send my original academic transcript to one of the governing academic bodies in the US. But the transcript could not come directly from me – it had to come from the appropriate person at QUT who could verify the transcript, who would complete forms to that effect and send the forms and the transcript (sealed) to the relevant US address, and who would be available for follow-up if necessary. While I understood the reasoning behind these requirements, I despaired at what I would need to do to fulfil them. I had no idea who the “appropriate person” was and I was reluctant to ask a stranger to jump through the hoops on my behalf – I was, after all, just one student of thousands at QUT. I thought that at least this would take a lot of running around and probably a fair amount of time on my behalf.

I sent an email to the University Registrar, Carol Dickenson, asking for help. I figured I was probably aiming a little high up the daisy chain and Carol was probably too busy, but she seemed like the mostly likely candidate for the “appropriate person”. Within only a matter of hours, my request had been passed to Sharron Caddie (Executive Officer, Office of the Registrar), Julianne Paltridge (Associate Director Client Services, Student Business Services) and Joshua Leuner in the Student Centre. I was informed that if I took the relevant forms to Josh, he would complete them for me and post them to the US institution with my academic transcript. I was also informed that QUT would waive the overseas postage fees for me. When I took my forms to Josh, he could not have been more friendly and helpful.

I was immensely impressed with the speedy response and general helpfulness of the QUT staff. They genuinely seemed willing to go out of their way to assist me. They made an otherwise troublesome and tedious process just that little bit easier.