Tag Archives: SLRM

Relationship Management in UK HE and FE Report Now Available

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Photo of a handshake

Relationship management is becoming increasingly important in the tertiary education sector as education institutions try to meet the challenges of funding cuts and increased student and community expectations. Customer relationships, if handled effectively, will bring benefits to both the organisation and the sector as a whole and it is in this area that JISC developed the Relationship Management Programme.

The first phase of the JISC Relationship Management Programme ran from July 2009 to April 2010. The Programme, supported by the JISC CETIS RMSAS (Relationship Management Support, Analysis and Synthesis) project, was divided into two strands and was :

  • BCE CRM (Business and Community Engagement Customer Relationship Management) Strand – aimed to improve business processes and to pilot and extend the BCE CRM SAF (Self-Analysis Framework). Twelve universities and one FE college used the SAF to examine factors affecting the people and processes that could affect the implementation or uptake of CRM (both as an approach and as a technology). BCE CRM includes employers and other external customers, who may have the potential to help the sector navigate through the current choppy waters of tertiary education sector funding. Good customer relationship management is vital in order to maintain and develop such relationships.
  • SLRM (Student Lifecycle Relationship Management) – focussed on improving the student experience by putting the student at the heart of the process. Six universities and one FE college trialled service design techniques at different stages of the student lifecycle in order to identify areas for improvement. As students clearly exhibit certain customer attributes, such as paying for a service and expecting higher levels of choice, quality and experience, it therefore seems appropriate to apply such commercial techniques, in order to improve the student experience, the institution’s efficiency and retention.

Whilst the two strands can be viewed as focusing on two different types of institutional stakeholder – external business contacts in the case of the BCE CRM strand and students in the SLRM strand – many of the issues regarding the way in which the relationship is managed by the institution are similar. For example:

  • BCE CRM
    • Ensure that an effective CRM strategy is in place, and that is disseminated to and understood by staff.
    • Use a framework to help your institution ask fundamental questions about the people, processes and systems currently in place, prior to making any decisions regarding improvements or attempting to purchase or implement a technical CRM system, because this will go a long way to help avoid potential pitfalls and dangerous assumptions.
    • Strong commitment from senior management is vital if CRM is to succeed.
  • SLRM
    • The institution should not assume that it knows what students want, need and expect.
    • Service improvements do not have to cover the whole service, e.g. enrolment, in one go – small adjustments can be made that can actually make a huge difference to the student experience.
    • Improving the effectiveness of a process can also improve efficiencies.

The current funding situation means that institutions need to become more cost-effective. Therefore, making the most of the systems already in place, improving processes, and ensuring that the student or BCE customer has a valuable experience may help achieve this goal.

This findings from this Programme are now available in PDF format: Relationship Management in UK Higher and Further Education – An Overview (Perry, S., Corley, L., and Hollins, P 2011). Phase 2 of the JISC Relationship Management Programme is now in full swing.

Relationship Management: So Long, and Thanks for All the Hamsters

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The final meeting for the JISC Relationship Management Programme was held in the beautiful surroundings of York St John University a couple of weeks ago. Simon Whittemore, JISC Programme Manager, has written an excellent summary of the event – The Pleasures and Pains of Managing Relationships and Changing the Habits of Information Hamsters – and as it’s such a good overview, I’ll try not to repeat anything here.

From a personal point of view, it was lovely to finally meet all the project teams and in some respects it’s a shame that it’s all coming to an end, as I’ve really enjoyed chatting to everyone and following project progress over the past 10 months or so. Because there were 20 projects in the Programme, it was decided to put them into groups, so they could each create a collaborative presentation for the final meeting. I know all the project teams have worked really hard and I must confess to feeling a bit like the producer of play on its opening night, who just wants all the efforts of that hard work to shine through.

Notes and presentations from the York meeting are now available, and I have tried to summarise some of the key issues for the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and SLRM (Student Lifecycle Relationship Management) strands of the Programme.

The three key issues I see for CRM are:
* Buy-in from senior management is essential to ensure that the CRM approach is successful.
* Cultural change is inevitable but is challenging to manage.
* Data (around contacts and the customer relationship) must be shared, yet this is often a stumbling block. For example, some people are very happy to view other’s data, but not share their own (information hamsters?).

For SLRM, the issues are slightly different:
* The student must be put at the centre of the process.
* What the student wants is not necessarily what the institution thinks the student wants.
* Service design techniques can help to identify failpoints in the student experience and areas for improvement.

There is some work to do now on synthesising the findings across the Programme, but it’s been such a pleasure to work with everyone, that I will miss following their progress. So good luck – I wish you all every success with continuing your CRM or SLRM approaches in your institution.