The solution, designed by Connect2Consult will help higher education institutes to automate their communication and interaction workflows towards students, bringing organizations closer to their goals of primary importance: to manage relationships with current students and alumni, and to effectively (and efficiently) educate, prepare and place students for the current job market.

Connect2Consult’s CRM solution’s modules are aimed at managing different stages of student lifecycle.

• Enquiry module aims at attracting new students to the institution, including the optimization of ROI concerning different campaings run by the marketing department.
• Enrollment module maintains all academic data and student-related process in one central access point.
• Engage module aims to prepare students for the challenges of the corporate world.
• Placement module manages the institution’s relations with partnering companies, attracting new corporations to campus placements, and increasing the visibility of the institution in the corporate world.
• Alumni module, finally, manages relations with former students, promoting continuing education programs, and aiming to generate contributions on behalf of the institution’s alumni community.

Connect2Consult highlighted that the current financial crisis has brought challenging times to Universities and the entirety of the education sector as well. To successfully tackle the current challenges, these organizations will also have to adopt best practices from other sectors, to consistently interact with their clients (former, current and potential students in the case of Universities and Business Schools) in a highly personalized manner.

While the use of CRM strategies and techniques is already widespread in almost all business sectors, education is falling way behind with CRM implementation, Connect2Constult stressed.

“We understand how higher education institutes can benefit from CRM by improving student-facing processes, by personalizing communications with students, by providing hands on training on the technology and by increasing placement opportunities thereby increasing student’s satisfaction,” the company added.