Albert Cardona, an Apogee Client Services Manager (CSM) for the Northeast region of the U.S., gets college and university housing administrators. He understands the ebbs and flows of a college campus and the politics of university departments.
After all, prior to joining Apogee in 2017, he served as Director and Associate Director at Seton Hall University, and Caldwell University. At Seton Hall, Albert got a first-hand glimpse of Apogee as a customer, and our fast, reliable Wi-Fi and exceptional customer service.
“Hearing about the new technologies Apogee was pushing out year after year is what excited me the most about joining the company,” he says. “I was impressed by all of the things Apogee was doing to make managed ResNet financially accessible.”
Cardona is part of an experienced and dedicated team of Apogee CSMs. CMSs are responsible for account stewardship and meeting clients’ ever-evolving technology needs in a timely manner for nearly 400 colleges and universities throughout the country. Every Apogee customer is assigned a CSM, and CSMs interface with customers more than any other type of employee at Apogee. Working closely with chief information officers, housing directors, and other campus leaders, they become a part of the fabric of the campus and wear their schools’ colors.
“We try to go above and beyond the call of duty, and all our schools appreciate the time we spend on campus,” Cardona says.
This type of responsive, creative, hands-on, approach to customer service sets Apogee apart from small businesses, which lack the resources to provide this level of high-touch customer service, and the large broadband companies, which lack the personal touch and specialization in higher education. CSMs are a major reason why Apogee achieved a 98 percent customer satisfaction rating, and a 71 Net Promoter Score last year.
Cardona says he often hears grim stories from Apogee customers who reflect on previous experiences with other Wi-Fi providers.
“With other service providers, some clients can feel lost,” he says. “After a network outage, it can take them a week just to get back to a school, before resolving the issue. This never happens with Apogee because of our dedicated service level agreements for incidence response time.”
CSMs produce a monthly stewardship report to review their services and help customers make data-driven decisions. They present reports that compare network operations data to the previous month, including the number of calls to the support center, number of tickets fielded on campus, types of service categories, and locations in which problems arise. CSMs can show a 24-hour timeline of where they’re seeing utilization spikes, types of devices, and time of activity, which can be insightful for colleges and universities.
“Colleges want to ensure that they’re developing a well-rounded student,” says Cardona. “With our data, they can plan co-curricular activities, which are learning experiences that complement, in some way, what students are learning in school. They can say, ok, well, we know starting at 10 o’clock, we have an influx of students inside our residence halls. What kind of creative co-curricular activities can we now offer to students during this time? Can we organize some sort of meet-up to discuss X, Y, and Z?”
During monthly meetings, CSMs also report on IT trends, and share insights on the shifting technology landscape.
“I remember having an insightful conversation about Yik Yak and sharing all the details around it. Yik Yak is a social media platform that allows people to be completely anonymous,” he says. “Within five days the CIO wrote to me, ‘Remember, when we were talking about Yik Yak. Well, now it’s a big thing on campus here,’ The industry is changing so much. The more information that our clients are armed with, the better decisions they’re going to make down the road to impact their bottom line.”
The Apogee CSMs are a big reason why Apogee has a 96 percent customer retention rate.
“I feel the value we bring as CSMs is staying engaged, understanding our customers’ needs, and providing insights into trends in technology and higher education,” Albert says. “How is this investment in technology aligning with either their strategic plan and what effects might we see moving forward? It’s an ongoing conversation.”
