CRM Trends

Do a web search on the phrase "CRM sucks" and you will find scores of articles, webinars, and blog rants dedicated to the theme. Indeed, if you use constituent relationship management software, you're probably familiar with the litany of complaints: CRM systems are too complicated; they waste staff time; they do nothing to improve the bottom line. But now is not the time to contemplate divorce. Think second honeymoon instead.

After all, this is one relationship that really needs to work, because it impacts thousands of other relationships treasured by your institution. Despite some rocky patches, schools have become increasingly reliant on these CRMs for their capabilities around recruitment, communication, and retention. Typically, they provide tools for collecting data, and for generating campaigns, communications, analysis, and reports based on that data.

The good news is that CRM vendors have been willing to do the hard yards to make their offerings more attractive. For one, CRMs are now much easier to use. And whether you are involved with recruitment or admissions, retention or learner management, personalization makes possible more targeted interactions. And that's just for starters.

Here are the seven biggest trends in CRM technology in higher education today:

1) Cloud-Based Solutions
Like most data-based applications, CRM is now in the cloud, and the benefits are many. Users can access CRM functionality through browser-based applications from anywhere, anytime--and the tools are generally streamlined and easy to use. As a result, they're also more economical. But perhaps the biggest benefit is that cloud-based CRM facilitates enterprisewide storage and sharing of data.

Indeed, centralized data storage is a real game changer, says Brian Niles, CEO and cofounder of TargetX, a cloud-based enterprise CRM package. According to Niles, some schools are spending an inordinate amount of time simply moving data around, leaving little time for productive work. One school used 20 different tools, including e-mail, marketing, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, as part of its recruitment process. To do a marketing campaign, for example, staff would move data from the school's ERP into the e-mail program. When responses arrived, they then had to move the data back into the ERP