Do institutions need customers? Or partners….or members…..
JISC Conference 2009
Debate: do institutions need customers?
At this year’s JISC conference, this session addressed the thorny matter of the ‘customer’ in higher and further education. Simon Whittemore introduced the ideas by assessing the pressures faced by educational institutions and partners in the current economic climate. Students are the institutions’ traditional customers but they are increasingly becoming part of the community demographic as well, meaning that those within HEIs and FECs may need to rethink the idea of their “customer” or “learner”. JISC is currently carrying out work on the topic of customer relationship management in the Business and Community Engagement (BCE) programme, but even this label is controversial – some argue that “partner relationship management” may be a better term. Some add that too strong a focus on the customer relationship can compromise academic excellence, as it could allow businesses to influence the curriculum on offer. The session ran with a ‘goldfish bowl and hot-seats’ concept to stimulate debate among the delegates – two debaters holding the floor sat at a table in the centre of the room, speaking for a couple of minutes until tapped on the shoulder and replaced by others, and so on.. Dr Jos Boys, author of ‘The e-Revolution and Post-Compulsory Education’,
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/erevolutionebook.aspx was the first speaker, and she began by pointing out that she is not saying that universities need to be more like businesses, but that it is worth knowing how relationships are changing. Analysing approaches to customer relationship management raises issues about how HEIs/FECs see what they offer, how they articulate it and how they view the associated relationships. As an alternative to ‘customers’ or ‘partners’, ‘members’ was proposed by Dr Boys as a useful concept, a perspective persuasively elaborated upon by David Donald, who argued that the notion of customer is ‘not native to our endeavour’ (higher education).
In contrast several delegates strongly expressed a view of the importance of the ‘customer service’ as more significant than that of ‘the customer’ in higher and further education, and we were reminded that some institutions have the delivery of a quality customer service in their Strategic Plans. This implies an understanding of what constitutes customer value in institutions and therefore of market segmentation and of internal business process change, argued John Burke and Sue McKnight, amongst others.
Among the views expressed was the suggestion that universities and colleges offer a unique ethos to which staff and customers buy in, rather than a specific service per se, and it could be possible to piggyback on existing loyalties, as in a football club (a comparison was drawn with US universities, where there is often investment in, and expectation from, family and lifetime membership) – but then that could compromise quality and independence, if ruthlessly pursued. Also debated was the view that that asking students to guide HEIs/FECs in outlining what they should be offering may be wrong-headed, as the HEI/FEC contains the expertise, and students are not necessarily au fait with what they need to learn and how they need to learn it – but then students should certainly have a say in the provision of their education, especially as paying ‘customers’……
A lively debate was enjoyed by more than 50 delegates, who headed out of the session with a great deal of food for thought.
The debate can be heard in full at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2009/03/jiscconference09/programme/bce.aspx
and can be continued here!
The Marketing and Communication Challenges of Engaging with Business
Over 100 delegates attended a Universities UK conference on 26th March to discuss the challenges of engaging with business in light of the current economic climate.
The view from the Vice Chancellor was presented by Professor Graham Henderson, Vice Chancellor of the University of Teesside who explained that business engagement has been at the heart of the institution’s mission for a long time. He also highlighted some key achievements including leading on a major regeneration initiative, Digital City, the appointment of their Business School Dean from the Business Sector, and investment in the One Door initiative which provides a single access point for business to the University and five local FE colleges.
Andy Russell from the CBI introduced the HE Taskforce and the new CBI Higher Education Microsite. The taskforce has been set up to investigate the challenges of HE engagement with business, including what business values from Higher Education and how university-business relationships can be further developed.
Other key issues discussed included SME engagement and its high opportunity cost, highlighting the benefits of working with intermediaries such as RDAs, Business Links and even banks, accountants etc, who SMEs turn to for guidance. How universities present themselves was also a widely debated topic - many institutions, while having an identifiable link for business on their homepage, do not present their services to businesses clearly and in language which is easily understood by the target audience. The view was that while universities are good at student recruitment, this is because they are clear about their offer, whereas services to business are more difficult to define due to their bespoke nature. The JISC BCE programme will be working with Universities UK who are responding to the issue of institutional web presence for business engagement.
Paul Clark, Director of Policy at Universities UK also presented Standing Together - how universities and colleges are able to help business during an economic downturn including providing education and training, bespoke courses, consultancy services, work placement and help to raise capital. Universities UK will be promoting the work of institutions and lobbying for measures to help universities do more to help business.
Presentations from the day can be accessed here