Seeman, E. D., & O'Hara, M. (2006). Customer relationship management in higher education: Using information systems to improve the student-school relationship. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 23(1), 24-34.
What: Case study of the implementation of a CRM system in the North Carolina community college system
Why: The community college system (NCCCS) needed a better way to organize information than the information system they had at the time.
Summary: Seeman and O'Hara give a general overview of CRM, focusing on the benefits of such a system to a postsecondary educational institution, followed by a brief history of community colleges in the United States. They then get into the nuts-and-bolts of designing and implementing the system used by the NCCCS, and the challenges and benefits encountered thus far.
Conclusion: Despite the problems with the NCCCS's particular implementation, there have been positive results: student services staff in particular are excited about the benefits to students. The NCCCS's CRM is a student-centered service that not only allows increased efficiency and analytical capabilities for the administration, but also enables students to take ownership of their education by providing easy access to grades, course descriptions, scheduling, and graduation checklists.
Article Evaluation: While the article doesn't deal with academic libraries, it provides a useful explanation of the purpose of CRM, and allows readers to see a bigger picture of how CRM is useful to the college or university as a whole, of which the library is a part. One problem I had with the article is the author's frequent exhortation that "as colleges increasingly embrace distance
learning and e-business, CRM will become more pervasive." (ibid., 24, 32) While I don't disagree with the authors' position, they don't provide any clear justification in their article as to WHY distance learning will result in an increase in CRM use.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Resource Review #2: Texas A&M's "Resdesk: An Automated Solution for Course Reserves Request Tracking and Process Management."
Arant-Kaspar, W., Carter, H., Desai, S., Byrd, J., & Hahn, D. (2007). ResDesk: an automated solution for course reserves request tracking and process management. Library Hi Tech, 25(2), 197-210.
What: Case study of the creation of a system-wide course reserves CRM software at Texas A&M.
Why: Course reserves is an important user-centered service and reserves management is its most critical component. Previously, all Texas A&M libraries had their own idiosyncratic systems for reserves management. Through the creation of ResDesk, the library system was able to increase its efficiency and provide better service in regards to course reserves.
Summary: The article gives an overview of the functions of a course reserves operation and enumerates necessary components for course reserves software. The authors then provide a detailed guide of how they went about the process of creating and implementing ResDesk, which is a modified version of the in-house IT helpdesk software. The guide briefly covers everything, including mapping out the entire course reserves process from start to finish, determining software functions and features, and getting faculty to use the software to submit their reserves.
Conclusion: ResDesk has greatly increased course reserves efficiency and customer satisfaction. Texas A&M libraries are now looking into expanded the software to manage the customer relationship side of such circ functions as lost or missing items, and holds requests.
Article Evaluation: The article provides an excellent overview of the development and implementation of the software, along with detailed flow charts of the reserves process. Texas A&M is unique in that they have developed their own in-house software, which is much better suited to the library's needs than vendor software, as there is currently no library-specific CRM software. Even if your library is not currently planning on implementing CRM, the article is useful for its thorough and holistic diagrams of the entire course reserves process, which are valuable to anyone who works in this area of the library.
What: Case study of the creation of a system-wide course reserves CRM software at Texas A&M.
Why: Course reserves is an important user-centered service and reserves management is its most critical component. Previously, all Texas A&M libraries had their own idiosyncratic systems for reserves management. Through the creation of ResDesk, the library system was able to increase its efficiency and provide better service in regards to course reserves.
Summary: The article gives an overview of the functions of a course reserves operation and enumerates necessary components for course reserves software. The authors then provide a detailed guide of how they went about the process of creating and implementing ResDesk, which is a modified version of the in-house IT helpdesk software. The guide briefly covers everything, including mapping out the entire course reserves process from start to finish, determining software functions and features, and getting faculty to use the software to submit their reserves.
Conclusion: ResDesk has greatly increased course reserves efficiency and customer satisfaction. Texas A&M libraries are now looking into expanded the software to manage the customer relationship side of such circ functions as lost or missing items, and holds requests.
Article Evaluation: The article provides an excellent overview of the development and implementation of the software, along with detailed flow charts of the reserves process. Texas A&M is unique in that they have developed their own in-house software, which is much better suited to the library's needs than vendor software, as there is currently no library-specific CRM software. Even if your library is not currently planning on implementing CRM, the article is useful for its thorough and holistic diagrams of the entire course reserves process, which are valuable to anyone who works in this area of the library.
Resource Review #1: Mei-Yu Wang's "Introducing CRM into an Academic Library"
Wang, M.-Y. (2007). Introducing CRM into an academic library. Library Management, 28(6-7), 281-291.
What: This article is a case study of the process of implementing CRM in an academic library in Taiwan.
Why: The purpose of this article is to discover possible barriers to CRM implementation in academic libraries, and to explore CRM's efficiency and effectiveness after implementation.
Summary: In the first part of the article, Wang gives an overview of the paradigm shift to user-centered services, translating the business-world language into library terms, and discusses the reasons for unsuccessful CRM implementations along with suggested steps for successful executions.
In the second part of the article, Wang discusses the case study in Taiwan: staff were uncooperative at first because they didn't think they needed to worry about competing to retain patrons, they were concerned that CRM would make more work for them and would encourage difficult customers to have even more unreasonable expectations, and they didn't see any value to CRM and thought it was just a buzzword. Through interacting with the staff over several months, the researchers were able to alleviate these fears by showing them how CRM was useful and explaining the need for it in the library. The staff members were also involved in all areas of determining necessary software functions and features, selecting a package, and implementing the software.
Conclusion: When implementing CRM software, the biggest problems are raising staff awareness of what CRM does and how it is useful, and in differentiating among ILS, online reference, and CRM. In a successful application, staff's fears and anxieties will be addressed, and their involvement in the process with be rewarded and encouraged to make them feel engaged and empowered, thus relieving their fears and anxieties.
***CRM implementation can be a lengthy process***
Article Evaluation: This article is good for anyone wishing to learn more about CRM. The overview of the shift from product-centered to user-centered services is explained clearly and concisely, and most importantly Wang is able to explain CRM using library terminology with hypothetical examples to help the reader visualize CRM's use in the particular context.
The second half of the article could have been improved if Wang had gone into more specifics about this particular implementation--this is a case study, after all--but overall the article was informative and useful to anyone seeking information about this topic.
What: This article is a case study of the process of implementing CRM in an academic library in Taiwan.
Why: The purpose of this article is to discover possible barriers to CRM implementation in academic libraries, and to explore CRM's efficiency and effectiveness after implementation.
Summary: In the first part of the article, Wang gives an overview of the paradigm shift to user-centered services, translating the business-world language into library terms, and discusses the reasons for unsuccessful CRM implementations along with suggested steps for successful executions.
In the second part of the article, Wang discusses the case study in Taiwan: staff were uncooperative at first because they didn't think they needed to worry about competing to retain patrons, they were concerned that CRM would make more work for them and would encourage difficult customers to have even more unreasonable expectations, and they didn't see any value to CRM and thought it was just a buzzword. Through interacting with the staff over several months, the researchers were able to alleviate these fears by showing them how CRM was useful and explaining the need for it in the library. The staff members were also involved in all areas of determining necessary software functions and features, selecting a package, and implementing the software.
Conclusion: When implementing CRM software, the biggest problems are raising staff awareness of what CRM does and how it is useful, and in differentiating among ILS, online reference, and CRM. In a successful application, staff's fears and anxieties will be addressed, and their involvement in the process with be rewarded and encouraged to make them feel engaged and empowered, thus relieving their fears and anxieties.
***CRM implementation can be a lengthy process***
Article Evaluation: This article is good for anyone wishing to learn more about CRM. The overview of the shift from product-centered to user-centered services is explained clearly and concisely, and most importantly Wang is able to explain CRM using library terminology with hypothetical examples to help the reader visualize CRM's use in the particular context.
The second half of the article could have been improved if Wang had gone into more specifics about this particular implementation--this is a case study, after all--but overall the article was informative and useful to anyone seeking information about this topic.
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