Building customer relationships: a model for vocational education and training delivery

Abstract Changes being made to vocational education and training (VET) in Australia to enable industry to be more internationally competitive include making training more responsive to industry and client needs, delivering work skills to specific industry standards, making entry level training more flexible and developing a nationally recognised training framework. Organisations across many industries are adopting a marketing relationship approach in their interactions with customers, recognising the importance of creating value for their current customer base, alongside the need to create new business opportunities. Reports from Britain have described the building of enterprise-specific training programmes, with local partnerships between technical colleges and industry forming the basis of successful British VET delivery. This article first describes theoretical aspects of relationship marketing which support the building of business relationships, then examines the various interactions between industry...