Smart Technologies for Smart Nations by Purnendu Mandal & John Vong

Author:Purnendu Mandal & John Vong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Singapore, Singapore

8.4 Research Findings

8.4.1 Factors in Building and Maintaining Agent Relationships

In this research, university key personnel who liaise closely with education agents to recruit international students to their institution were asked what factors are important for building and maintaining a relationship with education agents. As highlighted above, commitment and trust were deemed by extant literature to be the two forefront aspects of importance in building and maintaining relationships. Contrary to these findings, this research found that the most popular response regarding how to build and maintain a relationship between education agents and university staff was through active “engagement” with the agents, which included activities such as maintaining regular contact and communication. Providing good service and response time to inquiries was the second highest mentioned cluster. Items of secondary importance, mentioned to a lesser degree than the first two clusters of engagement and service, were honesty, reward, trust, and respect.

The below diagram (Fig. 8.1) provides an overview of these collated response clusters, indicating the level of importance of each factor in building and maintaining a relationship. The “engagement” cluster of responses were stated by respondents on 54 occasions, and due to the number of times mentioned, this cluster was deemed to be the most important element in building and maintaining a relationship. Providing a high level of “service” was mentioned in 25 responses, followed by “honesty” mentioned 14 times, “reward” – in the form of commission or incentives – mentioned by 10 respondents, “trust” mentioned 7 times, and “respect” 5 times.

The “engagement” cluster (54) included a variety of factors mentioned by respondents, which all centered on a similar theme involving the action of active engagement with the other party. Engagement included such things as regular and consistent contact, communication, accessibility, being supportive, participating in agent activities, and undertaking relationship-building activities. Engagement in the instances mentioned by the universities was the actions of the universities seeking to engage with the agents. Example comments by university employed respondents when asked how they build and maintain relationships with their education agents included:A52: “Keep in contact with them, do things with them, participate in their events, and make them feel of value.”

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