Customer relationship management as perceived by students and administration at AIIAS

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find out how the Customer Relationship Management concept, as conceptualized by Kaj Storbacka and Jarmo R. Lehtinen, was being implemented at AIIAS. The concept has four essentlal relationship perspectives, namely, Exchange of Resources, Relationship Structure, Relationship phases, and Implementation of CRM strategies, on which the study was based. It speciflcally attempted to answer the follovring questions: (1) Demographic and psychographic profile of student respondents; (2) Rank ordered perceptions of students about AIIAS as a school and a community of faithful people; (3) Kolmogorov-Smirnov analysis of individual perceptions between those of students and administrators about the implementation of the CRM concept at AIIAS; (4) Analysis of variance of individual perceptions about the implementation of the CRM concept at AIIAS among respondents, both students and administrators, when they are grouped according to demographic and psychographic variables; (5) Rank ordered perceptions of students regarding the recommended marketing strategies at AIIAS.

The study was delimited to AIIAS students currently registered at the beglnning of the second semester of the year 2003-2004, specifically on November 04, 2003, and to AIIAS administrators (including their supporting staff) permanently working at the same period of time. The research was a descriptive, qualitative, and quantitative study, with the questionnaire and focus group dlscussions as the main instrumentation. Out of 134 questionnaires, 121 (90.3% ) were completed from the students sample; and 13 (81.25%) out of 16 from the administrators sample. Sixteen students participated in the focus discussion, which took place on the 9th of January 2004. Both groups, Married & Singles, comprised eight participants. The results of the study were as follow:

First, there were more male than female, and more married than singles. Majority of respondents (78%) came from Asia, age ranged from 2I to over 50, with most of the respondents (about two-third) being 21-40. The majority belonged to the Seminary, and was pursuing masteral programs; most were self-sponsored. Most of the respondents have spent between 1-2 years at AIIAS; and finally, most of the respondents were optimist about AIIAS.

Second, half of the student respondents agreed with Service Delivery at AIIAS; and most were non-committal to the statements related to complaints handling. As far as spirltuality is concerned, from the item's means, overall student respondents were non-committal to the statements related to spiritual assessment at AIIAS. On the other hand, the frequency distribution table (Appendix B, p. 17) revealed that most of the student respondents (47%) actually agreed. However, participants from the focus group discussions suggested that "AIIAS as whole is not able to demonstrate or reflect its Christian commitment in its relationship with the students".

Third, student respondents had shared preferences on the issues discussed in the questionnaire. For instance most of the time the majority of the student respondents tended to agree to the statements related to Exchange of Resources and Implementation of CRM strategies; and to be either non-committal or disagree to the statements related to Relationship Structure and Relationship Phases. On the other hand, administrator respondents tended to have dlvergent opinions, except on few items. Finally, both students and administrators agreed that the objective of the relationship strategies at AIIAS is to foster a good learnlng process, and the success of AIIAS largely depends on the implementation of relationship strategies .

Fourth, there were significant differences in perception on specific single items, on how Customer Relationship Management was implemented at AIIAS, among the respondents when they were grouped according to demographic and psychographic variables; except when they were grouped according to nationality and academic degree. On the other hand, differences mostly appeared on single items when repondents are grouped according to present status and psychographic variables, particularly on Relationship Structure and Relationship Phases at AIIAS, which seem to be weaknesses of AIIAS in that mostly less than 50% of student respondents agreed on all the corresponding items.

Fifth, among other factors, respondents consider "Christian education" and "good reputation" as important reasons why students study at AIIAS; they also think that AIIAS' expansion into more DLCs is quite successful. However, respondents disagree that prices at AIIAS (including housing) are reasonable.

Based on the above results it was recommended that the zipper strategy, whereby students become coworkers with the school to a predetermined and agreed upon extent, be adopted by the institution. In other words, the institution, in cooperation with the students, must set up a covenant or a script including roles and boundaries of each party; and make sure that both parties are reading the same script and are moving together toward different but compatible objectives, through customer satisfaction survey, dialogues, etc. This will give the opportunity to AIIAS to turn all or most of its customers into loyalists; and help each party to attain its objectives without making the other worse off.