Inside Campus Partners

Sharal Duncan
September 2005

Sharal Duncan

Customer Service Representative

As a Customer Service Representative, Sharal Duncan’s responsibilities include such tasks as answering phone calls, changing separation dates, processing deferments, updating loan amounts, and processing all submitted work. However, Sharal exceeds her stated job duties everyday. Known for her quick response to customers’ requests and positive upbeat attitude, Sharal epitomizes the premier customer service that is our company’s hallmark. Although she is on the telephone for most of her shift, she is always ready to enthusiastically go the extra mile for her customers, who she also regards as friends.

Sharal has been with Campus Partners for over 13 years. She worked extensively with institutional, nursing, and health professions loans as well as borrowers before assuming her current role in Customer Service 11 years ago. This previous experience adds to the knowledge that she conveys to her customers. Asked what she finds most rewarding about her job, Sharal said without hesitation, “When my customers are satisfied.” She likes knowing that customers can get their issues resolved through her. “I don’t want them to have to keep calling back, ” she added. She absorbs all she can about federal regulations changes so that she can keep her customers well informed on that front, too. She is quick to credit Sharon Cameron, Audit and Compliance Specialist, for her “tremendous help” in this area.

Sharal’s customers indeed are satisfied and she has quite a following. Our office constantly receives positive feedback from her customers, which we publish in our internal newsletter. Customers at the Seattle Regional meeting held in July were disappointed that Sharal did not have an “Inside Campus Partners” profile posted on our Web site. “Where is Sharal’s profile? We want Sharal!” her customers demanded. (Sharal actually had been profiled early in her career, but her article was never posted to the Web.) Based on those requests, we decided to again highlight one of Campus Partners’ most important assets.

Sharal has equally high regard for her customers and says that she would love to meet all of them in person. She has had the pleasure of meeting customers from several of the Art Institute of California campuses, Gonzaga University, and the University of Washington, when they visited our office in Winston-Salem. Several of Sharal’s customers have been with her since she began in Customer Service, and she values all of the relationships she has been able to foster over the years. When you ask Sharal who her customers are, she doesn’t just name all the schools, she names all the people!

Sharal also has earned rave reviews from her manager, Daisy Bass, Director of Customer Service. “The thing that impresses me the most about Sharal is her dedication to her customers and their dedication to her.”
Sharal has lived in Winston-Salem all of her life except when she was attending college, where she majored in accounting. She and her husband David recently celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. As she sat twirling her lovely diamond anniversary band around her finger, she spoke of her goals for the future. “My main goal is to get my daughter through high school and off to college.” Sharal and David have one daughter, Shanda, who is a sophomore in high school and hopes to attend NC State after graduation to become a veterinarian. She stays active at her church, where she and her daughter perform with the Liturgical Dance Group. In addition to her husband and daughter, Sharal has many family members here including her mother, father, and grandmother.

An avid traveler, Sharal and her husband have vacationed in Mexico, Las Cruces, and regularly go to Las Vegas. After Shanda’s graduation, Sharal says she looks forward to more trips to some of her favorite places. Although she is decades away from retirement, she plans to travel even more when that time comes. “I want to go wherever I want, whenever I want,” Sharal states. Until then, we’re glad she’s here.