Advantages of CRM Systems for Higher Educational Institutions

Remember how businesses used to store customer information? In telephone books, Excel tables, diaries, card files. It was uncomfortable. All these carriers could be lost at a moment, and it was quite difficult to organize information in them or find it quickly. It was possible to restore the entire history of relationships with the client only from memory or by collecting all the records together.

Almost the same approach was used in education. The methodologists manually drew up timetables, all information about the students was stored in journals, and the educational process itself could not be imagined without a physical presence in the classroom. Fortunately, those days are over.

For everything to run like clockwork and to run quickly, it is necessary that information about each student and teacher be entered into a common database. In this case, the search for it should be fast, and the updating of information should be simple. All work tasks and timetables should also be kept in a convenient form and be easily available and modifiable at any time. All these functions and many others are implemented in modern CRM for the education industry.

CRM for higher educational institutions are customer relationship management systems. They include other functions for optimizing business processes - you can find everything you need. It all depends on the needs of the company.

CRM usage in higher education has a wide range of powerful benefits. All processes, both educational and any others, must be recorded in a single information space, otherwise chaos cannot be avoided. Importance of CRM systems in higher education lies in:

• Customer accounting and complete information about the relationship with them;
• Marketing tools;
• Schedule of classes and information on the educational process, by student;
• Personal accounts of students and teachers with the ability to upload homework and receive feedback;
• Ability to create tasks, business processes and schedule work.

This is not a complete list of features that prove efficiency of CRM in managing students. There may be other functions, including non-standard ones, for the implementation of which developers can be involved.

Thanks to the use of CRM, the conversion can increase up to four times. According to IBM, every dollar invested in CRM implementation brings the company five dollars in profit. This alone clearly demonstrates the importance of using this system. Below we will share the main benefits of CRM for higher education.

1. Reduction in the cost of expenses.

One of the main benefits of using CRM in education is that automation and standardized online learning processes reduce costs by eliminating a lot of routine and manual steps. But if during the implementation of CRM the number of routine operations in the company's business processes does not decrease, then the implementation plan requires revision.

2. Improving the quality of service / product.

With a CRM approach, the company prioritizes customer relationships, which allows for more feedback. And thanks to this feedback, you can seriously increase the quality of your services or your product.

3. Improving the organization management process.

The use of automation tools helps in the control and management of employees. With the help of CRM for university technologies, you can get data on the effectiveness of each of your teachers and students.

4. Increased customer loyalty.

All necessary information about the customer is collected and stored in a database that is available to all employees of the sales department. Thus, it is much easier to meet the client’s needs without getting on the client’s precious nerves while communicating with the sellers.

5. Track and increase the number of potential clients.

Having received loyal customers, you can be sure that they will bring their friends or partners to you. This method of attracting customers is much better than others in terms of price / quality ratio.

6. History of work with each student.

This is another benefit of CRM in the education industry. We are accustomed to the fact that our desires are foreseen, and post-sales support is available at any time of the day. Implementing such processes is impossible without a CRM platform, because it has a separate card for each client with full information about the student. This data is presented in chronology, and you can view the entire history of work with the client in a couple of minutes.

7. Relevant and visual MIS Analytics Reports.

This is another benefit of CRM in the education industry. We are accustomed to the fact that our desires are foreseen, and post-sales support is available at any time of the day. Implementing such processes is impossible without a CRM platform, because it has a separate card for each client with full information about the student. This data is presented in chronology, and you can view the entire history of work with the client in a couple of minutes.

8. Easy integrating with third party services.

Integration of CRM systems for school with telephony, social networks, SMS notifications, e-mail, different payment systems provides businesses with new opportunities to improve the efficiency of work with teachers and students in online colleges.

9. Planning and multitasking.

The CRM system will not let you miss an important matter, for example, such as congratulating a graduate on the end of the course, or an approaching end-of-course test. In addition, by automating many routine processes, the program saves time and increases the productivity of the entire team of teachers.

10. Easy implementation.

Gone are the days when to implement CRM you had to call a team of specialists and spend several days on installation. Today, to implement CRM, it is enough to download the installation file from the developer's website or use the boxed version of the product. At the same time, you can work with CRM right away, and employees can easily master the program while working through an intuitive interface.

11. Increase in repeat courses sales.

Gone are the days when to implement CRM you had to call a team of specialists and spend several days on installation. Today, to implement CRM, it is enough to download the installation file from the developer's website or use the boxed version of the product. At the same time, you can work with CRM right away, and employees can easily master the program while working through an intuitive interface.

12. Elimination of errors in processes.

Automation of the company's employee activity allows to reduce the mistakes of employees during transactions, such as untimely calls to the client, which resulted in the loss of the order or the wrong amount of discount. There are many examples of such blunders.

We faced such tasks as:

• Large video training base for a wide range of areas.
• The ability to connect students and teachers from different parts of the world.
• The opportunity to purchase online courses.

As a solution we came up with:

• UI/UX design;
• React.js + Node.js web platform allowing student create their profile search for courses, pay for courses watch videos webinars;
• React.js + Node.js web platform allowing an expert to earn money;
• Admin panel to manage project settings, add new pages and delete old ones, change the external design of the resource and content customizing;
• AWS serverless infrastructure.

The development of the online learning business is going fast these days and the competition for the consumer has become very intense. Many companies are no longer able to reduce their rates to attract customers - all that remains is to compete on the basis of quality indicators, including improved customer service and improved service levels. And this is just the area of ​​CRM.

The CRM approach has a great future and advantages of CRM for educational organizations are undeniable. Advertising was once considered the engine of commerce. Today it is not enough to create an original course, it must be customized, adapted to the needs of a particular individual. CRM allows you to close the entire cycle by "correct" work with the client. A company that has mastered CRM technology will be able to outstrip its competitors.