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Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Grow your revenue and profits with intelligent sales automation with Sales Cloud. Help every rep be more efficient. Close more deals. Collect cash faster. Boost growth and profit with intelligent automation and integrated tools fr...Read more about Salesforce Sales Cloud
Thryv
Thryv
Thryv is an all-in-one business management solution designed to help small businesses with essential business functions. With Thryv, business owners can expand their online presence, improve any customer relationship, and streamli...Read more about Thryv
Shape
Shape
Shape's cloud-based solution offers tools designed to manage online marketing and promotions, capture leads from online sources, organize sales pipelines, connect with customers and automate everyday tasks. Shape is suitable for b...Read more about Shape
FreeAgent CRM
FreeAgent CRM
FreeAgent CRM is a fully-featured CRM that helps your team get organized, gain visibility into day-to-day work, and get more done with a powerful, easy-to-use sales platform your sales team will actually love. Work smarter and f...Read more about FreeAgent CRM
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Claritysoft CRM
Claritysoft CRM
Claritysoft is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) solution designed for midsize and large enterprise businesses. It offers sales automation, customer service and support, marketing automation and social CRM withi...Read more about Claritysoft CRM
monday sales CRM
monday sales CRM
Built on top of monday.com Work OS, monday sales CRM is a no-code, customizable solution that empowers managers and sales teams to take control of their entire sales cycle - from lead capturing and sales pipeline management to pos...Read more about monday sales CRM
LeadSquared
LeadSquared
LeadSquared is a cloud-based marketing automation and customer relationship management (CRM) solution for businesses of all sizes. It serves clients in industries such as finance, e-commerce, education, health and wellness, market...Read more about LeadSquared
Issuetrak
Issuetrak
Issuetrak is a flexible issue tracking software solution that can be configured to suit the needs of a variety of industries and usages, including IT Help Desk, Customer Support, Project Management, and more. Issuetrak can be dep...Read more about Issuetrak
Creatio CRM
Creatio CRM
Creatio is a global vendor of a no-code platform to automate workflows and CRM with a maximum degree of freedom. Creatio offering includes a no-code platform (Studio Creatio), CRM applications (Marketing, Sales and Service), indus...Read more about Creatio CRM
Quickbase
Quickbase
Quickbase is a no-code collaborative work management platform that empowers citizen developers to improve operations through real-time insights and automations across complex processes and disparate systems. Here's why Quickbase i...Read more about Quickbase
Mailchimp
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a web-based marketing automation service with millions of users worldwide. The application allows users to share newsletters on various social networks and track customer engagements. The application provides tools to...Read more about Mailchimp
Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is a cloud-based business management platform that caters to businesses of all sizes. It offers sales and marketing automation tools with helpdesk, analytics and customer support functions. Zoho CRM helps users respo...Read more about Zoho CRM
Dynamics 365
Dynamics 365
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based CRM ecosystem for small, medium and enterprise organizations, with a focus on Sales, Field Service, Customer Service complete with strong integrations with Microsoft’s other Office 365 offer...Read more about Dynamics 365
HubSpot CRM
HubSpot CRM
With its cloud-based, customer relationship management (CRM) platform, HubSpot CRM helps companies of all sizes track and nurture leads and analyze business metrics. HubSpot is suitable for any B2B or B2C business in a variety of ...Read more about HubSpot CRM
Zendesk Suite
Zendesk Suite
Zendesk is a cloud-based help desk management solution offering customizable tools to build customer service portal, knowledge base and online communities. The solution offers a customizable front-end portal, live chat features an...Read more about Zendesk Suite
Pipedrive
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a web-based Sales CRM and pipeline management solution that enables businesses to plan their sales activities and monitor deals. Built using activity-based selling methodology, Pipedrive streamlines every action invol...Read more about Pipedrive
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign helps small teams power big businesses with the must-have platform for intelligent marketing automation. Customers from over 170 countries depend on ActiveCampaign’s mix of pre-built automations and integrations (in...Read more about ActiveCampaign
Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk is a cloud-based help desk solution from Zoho Corporation, catering to businesses of all sizes. Key features include management of customer support tickets, a customer support portal, contract management and report creat...Read more about Zoho Desk
Nimble
Nimble
Nimble offers browser widget and mobile-based sales force automation and social CRM solution for small and midsize businesses. The solution automatically populates customer profiles and interaction histories from contact lists, em...Read more about Nimble
LiveAgent
LiveAgent
LiveAgent is an online Help Desk solution for e-commerce businesses at the small and midsize levels. The platform offers live chat application, ticket management, online self-service portals, and change and license management, all...Read more about LiveAgent
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Buyers Guide
Last Updated: March 16, 2023Customer relationship management (CRM) software is central to modern business. It helps maintain and organize all of a company's information on its relationships with customers and is the foundation for creating more valuable relationships.
But what about higher education institutions (HEIs)? They aren't "businesses" in the normal sense of the word. HEIs have a range of relationship types—with prospective students, enrolled students and graduates—that don't fit any of the standard business world's molds. So what exactly is higher education CRM software, and how are colleges and universities using it? Read on to find out!
What Is Higher Education CRM Software?
How Is CRM Different From Other Higher Education Software?
Common Features of Higher Education CRM Software
Key Considerations for Purchasing Higher Education CRM Software
What Is Higher Education CRM Software?
Higher Education CRM software, and CRM software in general, serves one overarching goal: to create more valuable customer relationships. This includes making existing relationships more valuable as well as creating new relationships to in turn create value.
In the business world, more value usually means simply more money. But few schools are entirely profit-driven, so what exactly does "creating value" really mean in the context of an HEI? It can mean:
Attracting new students and increasing enrollment
Increasing student engagement in school activities
Growing community involvement with school programs
Strengthening relationships with alumni and faculty
Improving relationships with donors and alumni
These are some of the broader goals of higher education CRM software. We'll discuss them, and the specific CRM applications used to meet them, in more detail below. Before doing that, however, it will be helpful to first distinguish CRM from the other software platforms used by institutions for higher learning.
How Is CRM Different From Other Higher Education Software?
There's no shortage of software designed for HEIs. Traditionally, the most common type used by learning institutions is called school administration software. Another commonly used term is "student information system." These systems are designed to manage the mission-critical aspects of school administration, such as:
The application process
Class enrollment and scheduling
Tuition invoicing and billing
Class attendance and student grading
Class credit and graduation requirements
Student and parent contact information
Example screenshots of student-facing portals in STARS school management system
As you can see, school administration software focuses on the nuts-and-bolts activities of school administration. It operates in relatively black-and-white contexts where, for example, a student is either enrolled or is not; a bill is either paid or is not; and classes are either attended or not.
Contrast this with HEI CRM software, which operates in the much larger and much less black-and-white areas of school administration. It can help schools in the following areas:
Finding and attracting applicants from different pools and groups
Improving course offerings to increase retainment and better meet student needs
Strengthening student and alumni relations to improve fundraising
Clearly communicating a school's mission statement and benefit to the community
Put another way, school administration software and HEI CRM systems are both used to manage information. While school administration software uses that information to facilitate the school's daily operations, HEI CRM uses it to improve relationships while working toward a school's larger strategic goals, such as those listed above.
Common Features of Higher Education CRM Software
Speaking very generally, most HEIs seek CRM software to improve their recruitment programs, improve communication (with students, parents, donors and the general public) and improve fundraising efforts by strengthening relationships with alumni.
To meet these goals, HEI CRM systems help with data collection and analysis and the launching and management of campaigns that are based on that data analysis. Features and applications that are commonly built into HEI CRM systems can include:
Automate email campaigns, measure their performance and iteratively improve them based on data from previous campaigns. | |
Recruit management | These tools manage the entire pipeline of new applicants and recruits, automating many of the steps in these lengthy processes. |
Data integration tools | These apps help integrate data from other systems (e.g., school management and student information systems) to improve the CRM and vice versa. |
Social media apps | Social media monitoring apps help school administrators keep track of relevant online discussions and help coordinate the school's responses. |
A core app in all CRM platforms, these databases ensure schools use the right details when reaching out to applicants, students and other interested parties. | |
Personalized communications | Personalization tools help automate the above (and other) activities by helping schools customize communications based on a recipient's current status or success of previous communications. |
While CRM as a type of software has been around for decades, only in the past five or so years have vendors begun tailoring it to the specific needs of higher education institutions. It's a relatively young market, and offerings vary greatly between vendors. HEIs looking for a system that includes CRM capabilities along with other features might be interested in higher education ERP systems.
Give our advisors a call at (844) 687-6771 if you need help determining which vendors offer which specific applications.
Key Considerations for Purchasing Higher Education CRM Software
Adoption: Single department or entire school? One lesson learned from the world of business is that CRM systems work best (and return the most value) when they're used by all of a company's customer-facing departments. Before a school begins the selection process, it should first have a clear understanding of how the system will be used across campus, not only in one isolated department.
Deployment. Cloud or on-premise? CRM software is typically offered as a cloud-deployed (aka Software-as-a-Service or SaaS) or as an on-premise solution. With cloud software, the school subscribes to the platform and the vendor manages everything on the back end. With on-premise software, schools typically pay a one-time licensing fee but then manage the installation on their own servers.
Integration. Integrated or stand-alone? As discussed above, most colleges and universities already use multiple different systems of software. Before settling on a new CRM system, the school should determine what degree of integration it needs with existing systems. This determination should be made with help from the school's IT staff.