1. Navigating the choppy waters of CRM implementation
Derek Nott & Charlie Habershon

2. Customer Experience Consultant Charlie Habershon
Who we are? . .
Derek Nott
Customer Experience Consultant
Charlie Habershon
Higher Education Consultant

3. Why are University’s investing in CRM? External.
Heightened Student expectations
Higher fees and expectations of a ‘Amazon’ like user experience .
Ambitions to grow student numbers and keep them.
UG, PGT and Wider Participation .
More competitive market
The removal of the student cap
Inclusion of international students in net migration target

4. Why are University’s investing in CRM? Internal
Students enquiries are answered through out the University and often not recorded
Inconsistent processes for application handling
Often there is a lack of ownership across the student journey from enquiry to enrolment.
Lack of management information to fully understand which activities are effective
Enquirers will be bounced around the University with getting a satisfactory answer
Lots of frustrated staff whose valuable time is taken up by double data entry and deduplicating data!
There is no single record of prospective students and their needs and interactions with the University
Academic’s time is often being taken up by dealing with enquiries or making simple admissions decisions .

5. What challenges do we all face implementing CRM?.
Convincing senior leaders to make the investment
Bringing activities from across the University together to create a more consistent voice
Getting buy in for more standardized ways of working
Prioritiesing activities? Everything is ‘business critical’
Introducing new ways of working with a focus on the ‘customer’
A belief that the technology will solve all of the Universities problems.
Releasing staff time when everyone is busy
Too often it is seen as an IT project. How do you get the business to take full ownership?
It will take a long time before the full benefits are realised. How do we maintain momentum across he duration?

6. What are the opportunities for CRM?.
The capability to deliver a more effective and professional experience for prospective students
A better understanding of our prospective student
The capability to send consistent and targeted communications to prospective students.
Improve visibility of student recruitment numbers allowing for intelligent student planning
Management information to evaluate activities and focus efforts to increase conversion.

7. What does good change management look like?
MAKING IT
ESSENTIAL
READY
HAPPEN
STICK
Creating urgency and commitment and building the case for change to make it essential.
Communicating and following up on the change initiative to make it stick
Driving and releasing implementation of the change initiative to make it happen.
Designing and specifying the plan for the change initiative to make it ready.

8. Driving and Releasing Change on your CRM project
Build and communicate a compelling case for the CRM
Design and drive the CRM programme
Design a new institutional operating model
Enable change leadership
Engage and enable academic and professional service staff
Embed new behaviours
MAKE THE CHANGE ESSENTIAL
MAKE YOUR INSTITUTION CHANGE READY
MAKE THE CHANGE HAPPEN
MAKE THE CHANGE STICK
Develop case for change. Ensure this is audience specific and future proof
Communicate the change narrative. What are the best channels for your audience?
Agree and track benefits. How will these make a difference to staff and students?
Realise and communicate benefits. Be consistent in your messaging
Agree governance and scope of processes / departments
Develop the detailed plan. Share with key stakeholders.
Deliver against project milestones. Deliver and communicate quick wins.
Review and support transition to Business as Usual
Design detailed operating model change. Think outside conventional structures
Deliver business design changes.
Develop improvements and embed KPIs
Identify, form and develop guiding coalition with senior sponsors
Build change capability. Where are the skills gaps needed for delivery?
Lead and commit to the changes
Personify change as the new normal
Assess Impact, identify and engage change champions.
Provide training and support transition with frequent feedback mechanisms
Maintain engagement activity and feedback.
Define the desired future behaviours
Identify
behavioural gaps. What activities could address this?
Implement changes, empower and incentivise staff
Anchor changes, celebrate successes
Define changes to your operating model and roles
Identify and understand stakeholders and the scale of change required
Drive change top down
Release change bottom up

9. Making the change essential
Points to consider:
The case for change has to be genuinely compelling – the vision must be exciting and the evidence base sound
Develop a comprehensive business case including full costs and benefits
Get the right people on board – governance needs to be aligned with planned outcomes not institutional structure
Allow sufficient time – don’t underestimate the effort required
Design from the outside in – the student experience must be developed from the student’s perspective. Think outside conventional HE structures
Work with the enlightened – those that will make the change happen and help you to remove blockers
Focus on the benefits that matter – move beyond time and cost with focus placed on broader benefits

10. Making your institution change ready
Points to consider:
Think about your audience – CRM means different things to different people so pitch your messages accordingly
Be open and honest with stakeholders – if you require a day a week from them, tell them
Design the technology around the optimum student experience not how the technology works best
Involve the right people – blend analytical, constructive and creative thinking – capture requirements in a way that works for people
Support change leaders to maintain the vision as the focus of change – change is not about completing the programme but driving and releasing the vision.
Ensure leaders ‘walk the talk’ – most will know that commitment is generated from the top

11. Making the change happen
Points to consider:
Keep your eye on the big picture – CRM is not just about the technology. Ensure all projects come together to deliver the overall change vision
Face time – there is no substitute for seeing people face to face to discuss progress, secure real-time feedback and generate ongoing buy-in for the change
Several iterations may be required to deliver the required business change – persevere and ensure continued alignement with the change vision
Provide support little and often – different people require support in different ways – tailor the approach to the person – one size rarely fits anyone
Never rely on the message getting through first time – helping staff to adopt new ways of working requires both formal and informal feedback mechanisms – repetition is key

12. Making it Stick Points to consider:
Communicate successes – but realise that all improvements won’t happen on day one. Be patient and communicate improvements and successes as they happen
And lessons learned – it can be all to easy to dive on to the next project or programme. Take time to engage staff and students on what went well, what didn’t and how you can change things in the future
Anchor the change in the organisation – the key to making the change stick is cultural and behavioural shift – measure the impact of CRM with hard and soft metrics

13. Q&A
Any Questions?