I run a programme looking in to Relationship Management for Higher Education. The programme seeks to professionalize the way Universities and Colleges manage the relationships they have with students across the entire student lifecycle (from pre-registration right through to alumni) and relationships with wider partners as traditional Customer Relationship Management, the latter managed by my colleague Simon Whittemore.

The benefits to be had here are considerable and many can be achieved in under 12 months.

The programmes is in its fifth year. During that time we’ve gathered a lot of experience. We’re moving to a business change phase now within the 16 Universities and colleges themselves, but also developing materials to help the entire sector improve their relationships, hence improving the student experience, gaining more from and giving back to alumni and exploiting business and community engagement. We’re ready to help the UK HE sector to professionalise their relationships, improve their reputation, become more efficient and better align their services to the needs of their customers.

Today we’re all in Manchester at the Palace Hotel sharing experiences, developing a maturity model, identifying resources (and gaps) to support transitioning up that curve with a view to creating a coherent JISC offer to UK Universities and Colleges. We expect that to be available by February 2013.

The slides for the day are available here

Resources produced to date include

Briefing paper Managing your customers
Mapping of JISC Resources to stages of the student lifecycle
Student Lifecycle Relationship Management Report
BCE CRM Handbook (to be launched at AURIL Conference 2013)
Just Enough (to get started with) Relationship Management
CRM Self Analysis Framework

The projects will deliver the following (by 31 August 2012)
Case Studies (Progression / Retention) / Report (Alumni)
Videos
Impact Analysis
Programme Evaluation / Completion Report (questionnaires)
Financial Report (JISC budget template)
A Customer Relationship Management Handbook

Those who know me will recall Danson’s 3 U’s – Useful, Usable and Used.

JISC will take all these outputs and synthesise them into a single Useful and Usable web resource we’re calling a Compendium of Good Practice for Relationship Management. This will be complete by February 2013, launched at AURIL Conference and JISC CETIS Conference and may become the subject of a JISC Offer to UK HE via a range of delivery methods (webinars, social media, face to face events) later in 2013.

I’ll add in links to blogs describing findings from the day soon along with our ideas for a maturity model for Relationship Management and the sorts of tools, expertise, knowledge required to transition from low to high.

Critical Success Factors for Relationship Management Initiatives

Group 1
Roadmap of elements/Critical Success Factors – from initial discovery onwards to effective practice in relationship management.
The CSFs need to be in place to allow progression in relationship management.

They are:
Constituent Interest
Constituent Involvement
Management buy-in and leadership – “champions” – within a range of areas
A collaborative environment within the institution
Shared goals – internal agreement
Strategic support beyond the technical
A product that works
Constituent testimonials
Business case & resource

So, the idea around the table is that these CSFs need to be pursued before progress is made. It was not decided whether these have a necessary sequence or how they relate to the stages of the roadmap, but the group was confident that they need to be there.

Here are some posters produced by the Student Retention, Progression and Non-Completion projects

Poster 1
Poster 2
Poster 3
Poster 4
Poster 5
Poster 6
Poster 7
Poster 8
Poster 9
Poster 10