Phill Bevan:

I want to connect this back to your brand and share a story from a discussion I had yesterday. I was talking to a CEO, and as we were having this chat, he started talking about the facilities for the provider.

He said, ‘Oh, we’ve spent a fortune on our facilities, probably three or four times what our competitors would have spent on their campus. But we deliberately did it because we wanted to make sure that the students wanted to be here. We wanted them to walk in and be wowed and feel comfortable and want to be here, not want to be with our competitor down the road. We had this discussion about what an interesting competitive advantage that is; it’s part of their unique selling proposition that they’ve made this investment to get that reaction.

I was thinking about how that works in digital—in the solutions that our students are experiencing online. My feeling historically is that VET providers haven’t put enough focus or emphasis into making sure that their online experiences, their ‘online campus,’ is giving that student experience the same as what they might be doing on their physical campus.

How do you see that with brand? How is this tied up with brand and student experience in terms of the online space and the solutions that you’re using?”

Helen Baker:

“Yeah. And again, I think in that context, it’s like where are your customers? Where are your students spending the most time? Are they going to be in those premises and that’s where the majority of their learning and everything takes place, or is it primarily online, or is it a mix of both? Regardless of whether it is a mix of both, your online solution should be just as good as those premises. And it also needs to be really easy to use.

We had one customer I interviewed in the UK who said, ‘Do you remember the Apple ad—you can, you already know how to use it?’ He said he was looking for a learning management system that would pass the ‘Apple test’. So when the learner logs in, they shouldn’t have to learn how to use it. Miles is also an advocate for this; he always says the learner shouldn’t have a manual for how you use the online platform. Their experience should be the same. You should have a welcome message, and it should just be easy to know where to go to do their work. Nothing should get in the way of actually doing the work that’s been set for them.

My opinion is pretty strong that your students need to have that same brand promise delivered, whether they’re face to face with you or whether they’re using your tools.

Phill Bevan:

I love the point that you started with as well that it’s blended now. You might be using Cloud Assess, but you’re on campus using Cloud Assess. This whole concept of our digital presence—our digital campus and solutions—is still being used on campus because we’re using digital resources with people that are on campus in class or in a workshop. So that’s a really valid point.