At a recent job interview, I delivered a 20 minute presentation entitled Introducing e-Learning as a form of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Essentially the presentation was talking about my recent work at a Further Education (FE) college in England -- more information available on request! -- before focusing on using a VLE (Moodle) as a 'single interface' to a number of systems and databases.
The diagram above gives a typical example of what I thought that my FE college could try to achieve in the short and medium-term, through the introduction of a VLE. A way of introducing e-Learning as a form of CRM. You will notice that many challenges will exist in bringing together the various systems details, not least because nearly all of them have different deployment requirements.
The aim of this vision is to create a single view of the customer (“the student”) from internal (and possibly external) data sources which then provides the college (lecturers, student services and Senior Management Team) a consistent and centralised set of customer data. Long term, this vision would also allow for an increase in the ability to develop customer insight. To examine trends in attendance, student interaction with the college and their subjects as well as levels of engagement. With these systems linked to the electronic registers database, efficiency will be noticed in terms of processing Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) applications and payment.
However, the most important point to make is that CRM is aimed at changing an organisations philosophy rather than CRM being a technology itself. Remember, this institution is already centred around the customer. It is potentially time to amend policies and processes, and place an emphasis on staff development.
I'm posting these ideas here as a way of getting feedback on my ideas. Do they make sense? And am I along the right lines? Feel free to edit the diagram and repost it as appropriate.
All the best,
Nitin
The diagram above gives a typical example of what I thought that my FE college could try to achieve in the short and medium-term, through the introduction of a VLE. A way of introducing e-Learning as a form of CRM. You will notice that many challenges will exist in bringing together the various systems details, not least because nearly all of them have different deployment requirements.
The aim of this vision is to create a single view of the customer (“the student”) from internal (and possibly external) data sources which then provides the college (lecturers, student services and Senior Management Team) a consistent and centralised set of customer data. Long term, this vision would also allow for an increase in the ability to develop customer insight. To examine trends in attendance, student interaction with the college and their subjects as well as levels of engagement. With these systems linked to the electronic registers database, efficiency will be noticed in terms of processing Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) applications and payment.
However, the most important point to make is that CRM is aimed at changing an organisations philosophy rather than CRM being a technology itself. Remember, this institution is already centred around the customer. It is potentially time to amend policies and processes, and place an emphasis on staff development.
I'm posting these ideas here as a way of getting feedback on my ideas. Do they make sense? And am I along the right lines? Feel free to edit the diagram and repost it as appropriate.
All the best,
Nitin
