The Benefits and Limits of CRM for Non-Traditional Divisions

Students today expect more from their postsecondary experience than ever before. Having become used to the high levels of personalized service delivered by leading retailers, banks and other organizations, today’s learners of all ages demand a similar level of engagement from their colleges and universities.

This has led many institutions to invest in a veritable arsenal of technology systems and tools designed to drive student engagement, improve operational efficiency and support resource management, all while reducing costs. Unfortunately, in many cases, the rush to bring in a new technology supersedes the importance of ensuring that tool is designed with the particular higher education context in mind.

This Feature explores this question from the perspective of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, and discusses the opportunities and benefits these systems bring to the table while also highlighting some of the deficiencies and challenges they create.

Leveraging Technology to Know and Serve Students Better

Karen Thomson | Vice President of Marketing, Student Life and Alumni, George Brown College

Technologies that support and drive student intelligence help institutions serve them better both inside and outside the classroom.

Getting to Know Your Students: Five Best Practices for Developing and Managing an Arts-Based or Liberal Arts MOOC

Leah Waldo | Curriculum Manager for Berklee Online, Berklee College of Music

While many claim that MOOCs failed to live up to the hype, they have shown that colleges and universities have a lot of work to do in making teaching and learning practices suit the needs of their students, and the data made available by MOOCs is pioneering this work.

Relevance: Where CRMs Can Make All The Difference

Kyle Henderson | Web Design and Production Team Lead in the Division of Information Technology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Automated communications are not enough to truly entice a prospective or past student—institutions need to be able to deliver relevant and timely communications to maximize their chances at engaging learners over the long term.

Contextual Communication at Scale: The Transformative Capacity of CRM

Belinda Elliot-Bielecki | Director of Marketing and Communications in the College of Extended Learning, University of New Brunswick

Customer Relationship Management software can help colleges and universities deliver the kind of personal and contextual engagement to students that keeps them coming back over the years.

The Business Strategy of a CRM In Higher Education Is a Student Support Decision

Andrew Dixon | Director of Marketing and Communications, Colorado State University-Global Campus

Treating students like customers is far from a perversion of the central mission of higher education—instead this realization that students should be treated as customers, and the technology investments that support this relationship, help to support student outcomes while driving institutional success over the short and long term.

Four Key Steps to Developing a Truly Comprehensive Enrollment Strategy

Carolyn Stegmann | Student Services Manager, UW-Extension

A comprehensive enrollment strategy for a postsecondary division requires an array of fundamental information and understanding of the audience that’s backed by the right processes and workflows to make its execution a reality.

Understanding the Benefits and Defining the Inputs: CRMs in the Modern Institutional Environment

Christina Trombley | Assistant Vice Chancellor of Enrollment Services, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

A CRM has the capacity to be a truly transformational technology for a college or university, as long as the institution commits enough resources upon purchasing the system to ensure it is fully integrated and set up to perform as desired.

Where Technology Goes, So Too Must Culture

Heather Chakiris | Director of Student and Alumni Services in Extension and Global Online, UC Los Angeles

While CRM systems are effective mechanisma to drive improved student engagement, administrators and staff must recognize them as tools whose implementation must be accompanied by a broader culture shift toward relationship building.

Going Beyond the Status Quo: Maximizing the Institutional ROI for CRM with CLM

Shaul Kuper | Chief Executive Officer, Destiny Solutions

A CRM provides the basic information a college or university needs to communicate better with their students, but a CLM brings the robust student intelligence a modern postsecondary institution needs to deliver a great experience to learners at every touchpoint across their entire lifecycle.

Leveraging Tech Systems to Drive the Student and Staff Experience

Jason Smith | Executive Director of Enrollment Management in the School of Continuing Studies, Georgetown University

Technologies like CRMs require high levels of customization and training to operate as needed by non-traditional divisions, but once they’re in place the personalization and automation make a massive difference to the student and staff experience.

Beyond Lip-Service: Developing an Infrastructure to Deliver a Great Student Experience

Dan Bellone | Director of Marketing for University Extension, California State University, East Bay

True student centricity goes beyond a desire to put students first and requires postsecondary institutions and divisions to redesign every aspect of the student experience—down to back-end workflows and processes—to address and exceed students’ needs.