How do higher education institutions’ needs shape Sisu’s development?

Joni Pietiläinen works at Funidata as a Client Executive, with responsibility for customer relationships and their strategic development. He leads a customer relationship group in which higher education institutions and Funidata identify shared development needs and assess upcoming changes in the operating environment. In recent years, Funidata has developed its approach to customer relationship management into an increasingly structured model.

“The purpose of our customer relationship management model is to ensure an ongoing dialogue between us and our customers. We need to understand what is happening at our customers’ institutions and what tools they need to succeed in their work,” Pietiläinen says.

Funidata’s customer relationships have a distinctive feature: many of its customers are also shareholders in the company. This creates a closer relationship than a conventional supplier–customer arrangement. Customers also play an active role in shaping the future development of the systems.

Service requests alone are not enough to guide development

Funidata’s customer relationship management model consists of several complementary structures. At a strategic level, the customer relationship group focuses on broader priorities and shared development needs. Product groups bring together key users and specialists to look more closely at how products are used and developed. In addition, Funidata holds meetings with individual customers.

The customer relationship group provides a forum for identifying shared needs and agreeing on common priorities. Product groups explore what specific development needs mean in practice, while individual customer meetings provide an opportunity to discuss issues relevant to a particular institution.

According to Pietiläinen, the value of customer relationship management lies in building a broader picture of customers’ circumstances from individual observations. When the needs of different institutions are discussed collectively and regularly, development work can be directed more systematically.

Funidata has recently clarified the structure of its customer relationship management model. Working groups have existed for some time, but their meeting schedules, agendas and roles have been refined. The aim is to ensure that meetings deliver tangible value to both customers and Funidata.

“Meetings should not be held simply for the sake of having them. They need to have a clear purpose and provide value to the customer,” Pietiläinen says.

Customer relationship management is clearly distinct from technical customer support. At Funidata, customer success specialists handle operational customer service, service requests and technical support.

Individual service requests reveal where users encounter challenges. Customer relationship management looks beyond these individual cases to understand which changes in higher education institutions’ operating environments may create new needs in the future.

The focus is on what is happening at higher education institutions, what changes lie ahead and which needs their systems should support. Today, approximately one-third of students in Finnish higher education use Sisu, and the number of users is expected to continue growing. This makes dialogue and the identification of shared development needs increasingly important. If development were based solely on individual service requests, the overall picture would remain limited.

“It is difficult to develop things effectively if you do not understand what needs to be developed and why. We need to know what our customers need now and what they will need next,” Pietiläinen says.

Trust is built through regular communication

According to Pietiläinen, the model has strengthened dialogue between higher education institutions. Although institutions have their own ways of working and may also compete with one another, using a shared system encourages them to identify common processes and practices.

Pietiläinen has seen that carefully selected development groups work well. Open discussion comes more naturally when participants know one another and have a clear connection to the topics being discussed.

Trust is built through consistency. Funidata’s customer days bring customers together in person. Pietiläinen believes face-to-face meetings are important because customers are spread across Finland and much of their communication takes place remotely.

The model is monitored through both metrics and discussions. Funidata tracks customer satisfaction, the volume of service requests and feedback from meetings, for example. The model’s structures are also adjusted in response to feedback.

Growth brings new challenges

Sisu is currently used by nine higher education institutions. As the customer base grows, Funidata must also reassess its customer relationship management model and the effectiveness of shared forums.

In the future, artificial intelligence and automation could make customer relationship management more efficient. However, Pietiläinen says Funidata’s objective remains clear: to understand customers’ needs well enough to ensure that development continues to focus on the right priorities.

“The importance of maintaining an ongoing dialogue may not always be immediately apparent. However, over time, the lack of communication starts to show in a weaker shared understanding of the overall situation,” Pietiläinen says.