November 19, 2021
What does a great customer experience look like? That’s the question that Professor Kevin Engellant’s students answered as part of his block three class “Introduction to Web Design.” Helix Business Solutions (Helix), a global customer experience firm, conducted a Customer Experience & Web Assessment Module within Engellant’s class, giving students the opportunity to learn the business principles of customer experience.
“If you spend money on products, you’re a customer experience expert,” said Mitch Staley, a Dillon native and customer experience analyst at Helix who conducted the block three module. “We find that the principles of customer experience almost become instinctual when we teach them to our clients and colleagues. We found that Montana Western students were no exception and have great potential to provide massive value to the businesses they will interact with in their future careers.”
As a part of the three-week course, Helix, who consults and improves customer experience for some of the world’s largest brands, taught students the reasons why good or poor customer experiences can make or break any business, big or small. Students were divided into teams and asked to choose a large brand to conduct a customer experience and web assessment for based on the principles and instruction provided by Helix and leveraging topics from the “Introduction to Web Design” coursework. Each team then presented its findings to a panel of Helix customer experience experts who role-played the various stakeholder positions that they might present to in a normal business environment including CEO, Vice President of Sales, Customer Experience, and Service and Warranty.
The teams were judged based on factors including understanding of customer experience principles taught in the module, professionalism, providing solutions and recommendations to problems they identified and ultimately whether or not the panel would accept a second meeting with the team.
The winning team included students Dalton Lemburg, Emma Johnson, Duane Mckethen and Kimberlee Ollinger who named their team “Horizon Consulting.” Horizon Consulting presented its findings and recommendations for Razer, a global gaming and electronics manufacturing company.
“Learning how to look critically at a brand through the lens of the customer was enlightening,” said Emma Johnson from the winning team. “We found some great opportunities for our client to improve its customer experience online and understood why the company would want to make these changes to lower the cost of its customer service while still providing a great experience for its customer.”
Students on the winning team were awarded gift cards to the local Town & Country Foods.
Helix Business Solutions, a Speridian Company, is a global customer experience and technology consulting firm with offices located throughout the world including California, New Mexico, Montana, New York, Washington, D.C., Tennessee, Texas, Toronto, Singapore, Dubai and more. Helix has partnered with the University of Montana Western since locating its office in Dillon, Montana, in 2013.
“Experience One is our university’s mission,” said Kevin Engellant, Professor of Business. “Giving our students the hands-on experience to work with Helix and some of the brands they consult with is exactly the type of opportunity that students come to Montana Western to be exposed to and we are uniquely positioned to work with a company like Helix because of the flexibility that our block system allows.”
For more information about the University of Montana Western, visit www.umwestern.edu or call 877-683-7331.
