Use of CRM in Education

The use of CRM in Education is changing, the early adopters were traditional FE Colleges who use a wide range of IT related application to administer learners and courses.

Whilst some need to focus on the financial elements nearer the coal face it remains that a learners journey through the system needs to be smooth, controlled, enjoyable with clearly defined objectives at each stage.

CRM4FE was created in early 2000 to work with EBS, and other leading applications to give a simple to use interface that showed who was on a course, at what stage they were at and the outcome at each stage.

Flexibility
Every institution works in a different way, some have departments who focus on “Employer engagement” and sponsorship of events, others have a focus on Course management but without exception it is the diversity that each have which dictates that no single solution will work for all parties.

Which system is right for you?
It depends on the objectives and resources available to you as much as the infrastructure around you. The ethos at the top will make a difference since without commitment to fund your decisions to fruition and the drive to see your choices properly deployed then like so many projects this one could fail as well.

If you have a broad technical understanding within your team of how a task should be completed and the creative support of your IT/MIS department open to working with you then you can pick software solutions from the open market and only use the elements you need from any solution that work for you – you will be led by best practice and experience gleaned from experience.

If your IT support team are focussed on applications they have always used in previous lives and projects at your place of work have a history of running out of steam then it’s highly probably your options will be limited and at best governed by the experience of those who asked you to look for a better solution. Ironically this is typical of how new projects wither on the vine in many educational environs.

To overcome the status quo some companies have raised prices to eye watering levels with the result that everyone sits up and pays attention, at every stage the fees increase and you get what you are given. Customisations are expensive and take many months to deploy. When you look under the hood you see standard Microsoft applications and tools being used so what’s that all about?

Deploying any new system requires clearly defined objectives and commitment from all levels, we have the experience to help you set your goals and to ensure others understand them fully. Once the objective is agreed we work with you on the detail and then empower your team to take full control of the solution whilst we provide the resource of training and customisation to your agreed plan.

In the use of CRM in Education example here we are hosting the Employer and Learner records whilst the college hosted the Financial data related to each learner, we are able to show what appears to be a single application that gives each department exactly the view they require. Alterations are made when needed and dictated by the College who only pay for support as needed although a support agreement is in place it is less than the cost of a good lunch for senior management.

Your use of CRM in Education could be as simple as helping tutors have insight to the learners or run courses and employer engagement programs, either way we have the experience to help with a successful deployment and can either lead or assist manage the project as you require.