As the intake coordinator at the Goldberg Center, I am the first introduction to who we are and what we do. Many callers are parents of struggling teens, trying to determine if they should turn their child's future over to a virtual stranger. In order to help make this decision they sometimes request statistical data on our success rates.
I sincerely appreciate this request, and wish I could state for a fact 100% of our former clients are now happy, successful adults, and pass on a list of the colleges they attended their email addresses so that parents may contact them directly.
The truth is that it proves very challenging to track our clients' progress over an extended period of time. Once we are no longer engaged, we have limited means for doing so. If families chose to keep in touch, which many do, we welcome the opportunity to share in their updates and happy educational consulting outcomes.
I can confidently tell callers that we have an extremely high success rate for our clients. Basically the only times that we have been unsuccessful is when information has been withheld from us, thereby preventing us from proper due diligence, or when parents have not followed the advice of the consultant.
When our service contracts expire, we send evaluation forms to the families, and the response to our consultants and services is overwhelmingly positive. Any constructive criticism is taken very seriously by our team.
We are also eager to provide client references, and have numerous families who have used our services for multiple family members. In addition, we invite parents to contact any therapeutic program in the country to inquire about our reputation.
Bottom line is that there are no guaranteed outcomes. What we can guarantee is that we will provide parents with the tools they need to make the most educated decision for their son or daughter.
As a professional, how often are YOU asked for guarantees or statistics on success? As a parent, what do you need to hear to be comfortable with a prospective educational consultant? We welcome your comments...
