CRM School: 5 good practices for optimal use

Setting up a CRM in its higher education institution is a major project that requires good preparation upstream. What are the objectives and needs to be defined? How to choose your tool well and train your teams? What are the good practices to optimize data quality and daily use? Discover our 5 key tips for a successful implementation of your CRM School and effective management of your recruitment, marketing and business relationships.

Summary :

1. Clearly define the objectives and needs

2. Choose a CRM suitable for higher education

3. Train and support teams

4. Optimize data quality

5. Measure and optimize the use of CRM

Clearly define the objectives and needs

Analyze existing processes

To identify improvement points, it is essential to map the current school processes:

1. List the various key processes (registrations, monitoring of applications, admissions management, etc.)

2. For each process, detail the steps, stakeholders and the tools used. This will allow a clear vision of current operation.

3. Identify blocking points, time -consuming tasks and risk of error. Applicating teams on their daily difficulties is precious for this analysis.

4. Define performance indicators for each process (processing time, error rate, candidate satisfaction, etc.) in order to objectively measure progress.

This cartography will offer a solid base to target the improvements to be made with the implementation of the CRM, in alignment with the strategic priorities of the school.

Involve the various services

For a definition of relevant needs, it is essential to include all the departments concerned by the CRM, such as admissions, marketing or even business relationships. Each service will have specific use and expectations with regard to the tool.

However, involving many interlocutors can also complicate the collection of needs, or even lead to contradictory requests. It will then be necessary to prioritize and arbitrate, keeping in mind the strategic objectives of the CRM project.

The key is to appoint a project manager who will coordinate and summarize the needs of the various services. Regular workshops will make it possible to advance the reflection in a collaborative and coherent manner to define a clear and shared specifications.

Choose a CRM suitable for higher education

Essential features

A CRM for higher education institution must include key features to meet the specific needs of the sector:

• Management of applications: follow -up of the end -to -end application process, from receipt of the file to the final admission decision. The CRM must make it possible to centralize the data of the candidates, to manage the reminders and the communications.

• Event management: planning and monitoring of student fairs, JPO, seminars, etc. The CRM must facilitate the organization, registrations and follow -up of participants for these crucial events in the recruitment of students.

• Monitoring of business relations: Contact management and partnerships with companies, essential for professional integration of students (internships, work -study, employment). The CRM must make it possible to develop and maintain these relationships over time.

• Management of the student relationship: follow -up of the student's journey throughout his schooling, his registration for his diploma. The CRM must centralize academic data, notes, absences for a 360 ° vision of each student.

Scalability and Integrations

In the choice of a CRM for a school, certain characteristics prove to be crucial:

1. Evolution: A CRM must adapt to new requirements and grow with the establishment. This avoids the costs related to migration to a new tool and provides essential flexibility to meet the evolution of needs.

2. Integration: its ability to integrate into other existing school systems facilitates the centralization of data. This guarantees consistency in the information shared between services, thus increasing operational efficiency.

Train and support teams

Suitable training plan

To design a personalized CRM training plan according to the profiles:

1. Identify the roles and responsibilities of each type of user (administrators, salespeople, marketing, customer service, etc.)

2. Evaluate their current level of knowledge of the CRM and their specific needs according to their daily tasks.

3. Segment users in level groups (beginner, intermediate, advanced) to adapt the content and pace of training.

4. Define specific learning objectives for each group, focusing on the essentials essential to their activity.

5. Vary the educational formats (face-to-face, e-learning, practical workshops, individual coaching) to adapt to everyone's preferences.

Nominate

Involving representatives of each service in the CRM project is essential for a successful adoption. These referents will be the ambassadors of the tool within their teams.

Real experts and engines of change, they will be able to:

• Raise the specific needs of their service

• Accompany their colleagues in the handling

• Ensure the relay with the project team

Result: reinforced membership of users and a deployment facilitated on the scale of the establishment. Do not hesitate to enhance this key role in arouing vocations among your most committed employees.

Optimize data quality

Define entry rules

To guarantee a reliable and usable CRM database, it is essential to define specific entry rules:

• Standardize formats: Adopt unified formats for key fields such as telephone numbers, email addresses, postal codes. This will facilitate future research and segmentations.

• Make certain fields compulsory: define a minimum of information required to create a contact or business sheet. This will avoid incomplete duplicates and recordings.

• Use predefined drop -down lists: for the fields that lend themselves to it (sector of activity, function, contact status ...), offer predefined values ​​via drop -down lists. You will limit the entry errors and facilitate data analysis.

A user guide with these good practices and regular training will ensure that these rules are well applied by everyone on a daily basis for quality CRM data.

Regularly clean the base

To guarantee a reliable and exploitable CRM database, set up regular cleaning actions:

• Remove duplicates: contacts or companies recorded several times create confusion. Use automatic deduplication tools or proceed for complex cases.

• Archive inactive contacts: put aside profiles without interaction for a long time, without deleting them. You will be able to reduce the size of your active base, while retaining the history.

• Complete the missing information: cards with empty fields reduce the scope of your actions. Fill these holes with targeted research, by directly contacting certain profiles, or via forms.

Frequent cleaning, with specific objectives, will allow you to gradually improve the overall quality of your CRM base. Your challenge: reliable data for relevant decision -making!

Measure and optimize the use of CRM

Define relevant kpis

To assess the effectiveness of your CRM, follow these key indicators:

• Adoption rate: Measure the percentage of active users among the licenses deployed. A low rate reveals a need for training or an inadequacy of the tool.

• Data quality: regularly audit your database will prevent you from making decisions on erroneous information. Follow the percentage of complete and cleared sheets.

• Commercial productivity: Analyze the evolution of the number of qualified leads, opportunities or contracts generated thanks to the CRM. The goal: to identify growth levers.

• Customer satisfaction: via surveys sent from the CRM, assess the perceived quality of your customer relationship and anticipate the starting risks.

Collect user feedback

To continually improve your CRM, it is essential to take into account the experience of those who use it on a daily basis: your employees. Put in place dedicated channels to collect their comments, whether positive or negative.

Regular satisfaction surveys will allow you to have an overview of the level of membership of the tool and to identify the friction points. Complete these surveys with individual interviews to dig certain subjects and collect suggestions for improvement.

On the technical side, the analysis of CRM use data (adoption rate, the most used features, user routes ...) will provide you with precious insights. These field feedback, crossed with your initial objectives, will be the compass to guide the future developments of your tool and strengthen its business impact.

In conclusion, the implementation of a CRM for your higher education institution is a major project that must be carefully thought out. It is essential to define your objectives and needs upstream, to choose a tool adapted to your specificities, to train and support your teams in this transition. Optimizing the quality of your data and the daily use of the CRM will allow you to make the most of this investment. With a CRM as emunds, you can simplify and optimize the management of your applications and admissions, while offering a personalized experience to your prospects and students, for increased profitability and growth of your establishment.