Inside Campus Partners

Bennette Robinson
May 2005

Customer Service Representative

Bennette Roberson recently returned to her job as a Customer Service Representative with Campus Partners after several months’ absence. She had accepted a customer service position with a health insurance company, but quickly realized that she had made a mistake. She missed her co-workers and customers and the nature of her work with student loans. Fortunately, a customer service position became available, and she was able to return.

Since returning, Bennette has been busy getting re-acclimated. She has not been assigned to specific customers yet, and spends her time taking calls from borrowers and customers, processing entitlement forms and customer requests, and answering customers’ questions about reports and federal regulations. She is right at home talking to many of her former customers, such as the staff at California State University campuses and Hampton University. She still maintains the same high standards as she did previously. “If I don’t know the answer, I will tell the customer that I must research the issue. Then, I let them know the answer as soon as possible. It is my responsibility to assist the customer in anyway that I can,” stated Bennette.

After such a brief absence, Bennette did not need much of an orientation. She did attend a refresher class on loan cancellation since she would be processing forms for her team. She is also eager to learn more about myReports, our new ad hoc reporting tool that was released while she was away. She is very excited about the potential myReports offers to her customers and wants to be able to help them use the product. She is looking forward to the next training session on this powerful tool.

Bennette is also excited to be back with her old team and her manager, Daisy Bass, who is a Director of Customer Service. “I like the environment here. It never feels intimidating to ask a question or talk to a manager, and my co-workers are very supportive. I am also very glad to be back with Daisy. Daisy definitely conducts herself as a manager, but she has an open-door policy and is very easy to talk to,” Bennette related.

Bennette Roberson was born in Guam, but moved to Junction City, Kansas when she was five. While in Junction City, she met her husband, Patrick, who was a Sergeant in the Army at the time. (Patrick is currently a Special Projects Analyst for Campus Partners.) They were soon married and transferred to Germany where they lived for a year and a half. After Patrick completed his commitment to the military, they moved to Winston-Salem, where Bennette’s sister lived. In May 1997, Bennette was hired as a Borrower Services Representative and became a Customer Service Representative in September 1999. She has served as a Customer Service Representative with both the private loans and campus-based loans areas of the company.

Away from work, Bennette stays very busy with her children’s activities. Her oldest son is 19 and is taking a break from college until the fall. She has two more sons in high school, who are ages 14 (almost 15) and 16. Both are involved in ROTC, and one has already attained the rank of staff sergeant as a freshman. Another son, her “baby boy,” is also 14, and will enter high school next year. Amazingly, she has yet another teenager at home, her 13 year-old daughter, who is involved in cheerleading. With five teenagers at home and a full time job, she does not have time for anything much beyond driving them to activities. Fortunately, she is married to a “very good man,” and they are both very devoted to each other and their children.

“A customer asked me recently about what I did on the weekend. I told him that I did laundry for my family. When he asked me how many kids I had--he was shocked--but not surprised that I was doing laundry. But that’s my life,” said Bennette with pride and satisfaction.