| dc.description.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. | en_US |
