Posted Date:November 24, 2009
| Author: | Jana Hernandes, Service Director, Operations, Federal Student Aid |
Subject: Loan Servicing Information – Quarterly Customer Satisfaction Surveys Begin First Week of December 2009
In Electronic Announcements posted on the Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web site on August 28, 2009 and September 16, 2009, we explained our transition to additional servicer support for loans that the Department of Education (the Department) owns. Currently, these loans include William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) Program loans and FFEL Purchased Loans. FFEL Purchased Loans are made under the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program by FFEL lenders and subsequently purchased by the Department through methods commonly referred to as a “PUT.”
As explained in our earlier announcements, we began assigning FFEL Purchased Loans to the four new servicers on our loan servicing team—FedLoan Servicing (PHEAA), Great Lakes Educational Loan Services, Inc., Nelnet, and Sallie Mae—in early September 2009. Each year, we will measure the performance of these servicers in the areas of customer satisfaction and default aversion. We will then use these results to determine each servicer’s allocation of ongoing loan volume.
In this announcement, we inform the community of this year’s first quarterly customer satisfaction surveys of borrowers, schools, and federal personnel who interface with the four new servicers. We present the information in this announcement as follows:
Survey Process and Notification
Survey Launch for Borrower and School Customers – First Week of December 2009
Survey Process and Notification
We will measure customer satisfaction with each of the four new servicers—FedLoan Servicing (PHEAA), Great Lakes Educational Loan Services, Inc., Nelnet, and Sallie Mae—exclusively through the administration of customer satisfaction surveys. Each year, an independent vendor will conduct quarterly surveys of borrowers, schools, and federal personnel on our behalf. The vendor will survey borrower and school customers by telephone, and federal personnel will complete online surveys.
Note: Before the independent vendor begins surveying customers each quarter, we will inform the community of the survey launch through an Electronic Announcement such as this one.
Survey Launch for Borrower and School Customers – First Week of December 2009
The independent vendor plans to begin conducting telephone surveys of borrower and school customers during the first week of December 2009. Surveyors from Discovery Research Group will contact a random sample of borrowers, and surveyors from OLC Global will contact a random sample of schools. Both surveys have been designed to take no more than 10 minutes to complete and will be conducted in a manner that ensures the anonymity of all respondents.
Notes for School Survey Participants:
1) | Given our borrower-centric approach to servicer assignment, the independent vendor may contact a school that is interfacing with more than one of the four new servicers. In this case, the school customer will be asked to respond about experiences with only one servicer identified by the vendor. | |
2) | The survey is specific to a school customer’s experiences with the servicing of federally-owned loans by the identified servicer. While a school customer may have other loan servicing experiences with the servicer, responses should be limited to experiences related to federally-owned loans. | |
3) | If the independent vendor contacts a school customer who does not work with federally-owned loans, we ask that he or she provide the name of a colleague who does this work to the vendor and forward the call to that individual. |
We value the participation of all customers in the loan servicing process and will use the input we receive through the surveys to allocate loan volume and assist in ensuring that all servicers provide superior service to our customers. Thank you in advance for taking the time to assist us if you are contacted.