I do believe there is a lot we can learn from the commercial world when it
comes to promoting the use of educational technology in schools. In this article
I draw on the example of how one company's approach to getting repeat business
may hold lessons for the ICT leader.
The company in question is one called Viking Direct, a huge
office supplies company in the UK. We tend to buy quite a bit of our stationery
from there because (a) it's usually cheaper than other places and (b) you can
often get same day or next day delivery.
We recently received a catalogue from them which had this printed -- not
merely stuck on -- the front cover:
"Mr T Freedman
On 3 February 2008 you ordered a pack of folders at £7.49 per pack. We have a
special private sale price for you! Just £6.29 per pack. Just quote reference
number ..."
Now think about that for a moment. What has Viking actually done?
- They have kept a record of what I bought and when, and at what price.
- They have printed an individual catalogue for me, obviously through the
magic of mail-merge.
- They have used their knowledge of me to try and tempt me back.
So imagine a message like this in a colleague's inbox:
"Dear Joanne
On 3 February 2008 you took a group of Y9 pupils into the computer room,
where they used KoolFX to help design posters. We've now upgraded to KoolFX 2.0,
which has 30 more wizards and is even easier to use. If you'd like to bring your
class in again, just click here to go straight to the online room-booking
system."
If you think such a thing might work, the mail-merge bit is pretty easy. The
hard part would be collecting the information in the first place, because if you
ask some people to give you too much detail when they want to book the use of a
computer room, you may just put them off bothering. I would suggest doing one of
the following:
- Have a very simple electronic booking system, where very few questions are
asked, and most of the answers or even all of them can be
answered with drop-down menus. The information you need is teacher's name, age
or year of group, the software to be used, the purpose of the session, and the
date.
- Install network monitoring software that will capture much of the
information required automatically.
- At a pinch, ask for the information and enter it into a spreadsheet, say,
yourself.
You may also need to "sell" the idea, otherwise it can seem very Big
Brother-ish. There are two good reasons to monitor how the system is being used:
- To ensure that the software you purchase is actually the software that
teachers want to use.
- To ensure that the system is being used cost-effectively, ie that you
haven't wasted lots of money on resources that people don't use.
I know both of those reasons sound the same, and in fact they are alternate
sides of the same coin. But there is a subtle change of emphasis. In the first
case, the issue is, to get commercial again, customer satisfaction. In the
second, it is about best value.
The example given here is quite simple: you are asking for what is known in
the business world as a "repeat order". Repeat business is a very good thing to
have, as any business person will tell you. A key thing to bear in mind is that
if you set your sights on repeat business, you have to invest time and effort
into the customer's very first experience of using your services. Otherwise it
could well be their last.
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