Effective communication and data management = More deals = Happy customers = Business growth
This is a universal rule for all businesses, even more so, in the case of an educational consultancy.
Why, you ask? Well, because an educational consultancy thrives on connections – connections with students seeking guidance and with educational institutions offering opportunities.
And doing this without a CRM is simply not possible. Think about it:
How can you possibly keep track of each student’s application status, preferences, and needs without a centralized system?
How can you ensure that every inquiry, every application, and every interaction is followed up in a timely and meaningful manner?
How can you analyze data to make informed decisions that drive your consultancy forward?
The answer is simple: You can’t. Not efficiently, at least.
What’s an Education CRM?
An Education CRM is a customer relationship management software application specially designed for educational consultancies and institutions.
It helps you effectively interact with students over calls and messages, organize student information in one single place, track inquiries and applications, make important follow-ups, provide insights to make smart decisions, and a lot more!
Therefore, in this article, we’ll tell you why you need a CRM and how you can find the best CRM for education consultancy to streamline your communication efforts and grow your business to new heights!
Why does an Educational Consultancy need CRM software?
A CRM for school, college, consultancy, or coaching- however you like to call it, is a tool that keeps everything in order, like a neat and tidy backpack. All the information regarding students and educational institutions is in one single platform, education consultants can interact with students, and you can measure the growth of your consultancy.
But what if you didn’t have that tool? Let’s tell you what happens when you don’t have a proper CRM in place, i.e., let’s reiterate your current problems that a CRM solves:
Lost opportunities:
Picture a desk overflowing with sticky notes, a bundle of emails, and heaps of paper. Without a CRM, that could be your reality. Juggling student inquiries, appointments with colleges and universities, and meeting deadlines becomes a chaotic circus act.
In this mess, a student expecting a message might not get one, a meeting with an educational might not happen, and you lose opportunities.
A CRM brings order, streamlining information into a centralized hub that’s easily accessible.
Unhappy students:
Ever faced a situation where you forgot a student’s preferences or requirements? It’s like walking blindfolded into a maze.
A CRM lets you record every interaction, making sure you understand your students inside out. When you remember their preferences and can tailor your services, they feel valued and satisfied.
Communication black hole:
Ever sent an email and wondered if it disappeared into a void? Without a CRM, tracking communication becomes a guessing game. Did you reply to that parent’s question? When did you last touch base with that prospective student?
A CRM provides a communication trail, making sure no one is left hanging.
Misplaced attention:
Imagine spending hours searching for a single student’s file or contact information.
This time could have been spent guiding students and nurturing relationships, and actually driving business growth.
A CRM eliminates the frantic search, giving you more time to focus on what truly matters – fulfilling the aspirations of students by enrolling as many as possible and scaling your business.
Stunted growth:
Without a CRM, you’re driving without a roadmap. Monitoring your consultancy’s growth, understanding what works, and spotting trends become an uphill battle. A CRM paints a clear picture of your progress, helping you make informed decisions for the future.
What are the key features that Best CRM for Education Consultancy must have:
Every CRM has a ton of features. Some you might need, others, not so much. But there are some essential ones that the best CRM for education consultancy must have. They are as follows:
Follow-Up Capabilities:
Imagine a scenario: you receive a potential lead, but with a busy schedule, you accidentally forget to follow up with that lead, and as a result, you lose a potential deal.
With an education CRM, scenarios like this become a thing of the past. The follow-up feature ensures you’re always on top of your interactions.
You can set reminders for follow-up calls, emails, or messages. This leads to enhanced engagement, minimizes missed opportunities, and boosts student enrollment.
Application Tracking:
Tracking students’ application progress is a critical task. Without a clear overview, you might send the wrong message to a student who has already secured a place, or send a message to an educational institution that was meant to be sent to students.
An education CRM provides real-time application tracking, allowing you to monitor where students are in the application process.
This way, your team knows what to send, how to interact and personalize their attention to leads according to their application status.
No more confusion, no more delays, no more missed opportunities, and no more sending wrong messages to the wrong people.
Automation and Workflow Management:
You want to send an introductory message to new leads, you want to assign important leads to trusted consultants, you want to get reminders so that you don’t miss out on follow-ups, etc.
Now these tasks are important but also repetitive. And because of this, you’re not able to focus on other more important aspects of your business like managing your operations, handling clients, and scaling the business.
Enter automation – a feature that can handle repetitive tasks for you. From sending routine emails and messages to setting up follow-up reminders, to automatically assigning leads to your team members- it takes the burden of manual work away from you.
Customizable Reports:
Understanding your consultancy’s performance is vital for informed decision-making. If you don’t know what’s working and what’s not, how will you make changes to your strategies and check if your education consultants are achieving those sales targets or not?
Without knowing this, there’s no way your consultancy will grow.
With customizable reports, you can generate reports on parameters that matter most to your consultancy’s success. Reports on student enrolment rates, growth trends, counselors’ performance, and individual interaction statistics- you can basically track any metric that you want to.
If you find a fault in your strategy- change it. Or if your team of education consultants need training- train them. If you feel like a certain lead source is not giving fruitful results- evaluate your marketing efforts.
Integrations:
Do you have some data in Excel sheets? Are you constantly switching between your system and payment gateways when a deal is closed? Do you get leads from various sources like websites and social media?
And you have to manually manage all these tasks from different platforms. This just becomes extremely hectic.
This is where integrations come into play. Just like a remote control centralizes control over your gadgets, integrations in an education CRM consolidate your tools.
You can integrate with multiple platforms to ensure all your data is available at the click of your fingers. This means fewer tabs open, smoother operations, and no more manual data entry.
Personalized Bulk Messaging:
You send a huge number of messages every single day. From sharing admission deadlines, announcing events, urgent alerts, and collecting feedback, to announcing admission results.
And more often than not, you need to send the same message to a lot of people at once. Now individually sending the same message is simply not feasible as it will not leave you any time to do other things.
Bulk messaging solves this problem with ease. You can practically send any message to a huge but selected group at the click of a finger.
But that’s not all, the messages you send are also personalized, as in, the CRM automatically fetches their name and they are addressed directly- making your students feel valued.
How to find the Best CRM for Education Consultancy:
By now, you’re well aware of two things; You need CRM for educational institutions and it needs to have the aforementioned features. But before you buy a CRM for your education consultancy, you need to keep the following things in mind:
Easy to Use Interface:
An intuitive interface is crucial for seamless adoption by your team, including those who might not be tech-savvy. A user-friendly CRM reduces training time, minimizes errors, and encourages widespread usage.
Look for a system with a clean layout, clear navigation, and straightforward processes. This ensures that everyone on your team can effectively use the CRM without feeling overwhelmed or frustrated.
Relevant Features:
It’s easy to be interested in a CRM’s extensive feature list, but prioritize only what your education consultancy truly needs. Extravagant features might complicate the system and cause confusion.
Identify the core functionalities essential for your operations, such as lead management, communication tracking, appointment scheduling, and reporting.
A streamlined CRM with relevant features leads to higher efficiency and user satisfaction.
Mobile Accessibility:
Nowadays, everything happens on our phones. Having an Educational CRM that works on your mobile device is like having your office in your pocket.
Imagine being on a vacation in Goa or just chilling at home in your pajamas – you can still handle everything related to your education consultancy. You can manage student inquiries, check how many students you’ve helped, and see how well your team is doing, all from your phone.
Value-Based Pricing:
The pricing structure of a CRM should reflect the value it brings to your consultancy. While opting for a cheap CRM might seem cost-effective, it’s essential to assess whether it offers the features and support you need.
Conversely, investing in a high-cost CRM with features you won’t utilize is wasteful. Consider your budget, but focus on the value and return on investment the CRM can provide.
Pro tip: Make sure that the CRM doesn’t have any hidden charges.
Customization Options:
You have unique workflows and processes. Even the sales process of another education consultancy will be different from yours.
A CRM should be adaptable to your business model, allowing you to tailor it to your specific sales process.
Customization ensures that the CRM aligns with your existing practices, making it easier for your team to integrate it into their daily routines.
A CRM that can grow with your consultancy and evolve alongside your changing needs is a valuable asset.
Responsive Customer Support:
A CRM is a critical tool, and when issues arise, you’ll want quick and effective assistance. Check the CRM provider’s customer support reputation.
Also check the platforms they offer for customer support- emails, live chat, chatbot, calls, etc.
Responsive customer support ensures that any challenges you encounter are addressed quickly, minimizing disruptions to your consultancy’s operations.
Strong customer support can make the difference between a good CRM and a bad CRM.
Why TeleCRM is the best CRM for education consultancy
TeleCRM is known as India’s top cloud based Telecalling CRM, equipped with fantastic sales automation features like auto-dialer, smart follow-ups, call recording, and easy integration with WhatsApp and other tools.
It’s one of the best CRM for education consultancy in the market. But its workings are not limited to that of consultancies. You can use TeleCRM for any educational institute. It’s a CRM for higher education, coaching, schools- basically any education-based organization.
It has all the above-mentioned features and more:
Quick Setup and Easy Customization:
With TeleCRM, you can have your system ready to go in just one day. On top of the many ways you can customize it, TeleCRM is the easiest CRM to make your own.
Even if your educational consultancy team hasn’t used a CRM before, they’ll get the hang of it right away. It’s a fantastic tool for managing your educational consultancy processes.
Amazing Customer Support:
When you start using TeleCRM, a special WhatsApp group is set up to quickly answer any questions you or your education team might have.
On top of that, you can call the support team directly. There are also easy-to-follow video tutorials made for managers and education consultants. You’ll find useful blog articles, interactive Zoom sessions to help you get started and learn, and a live chat option right on TeleCRM’s website to provide further assistance.
Cost-effective Pricing:
While many CRMs offer plans that give you more features as you pay more, TeleCRM takes a different approach. It offers a single plan that includes all features and customizations at a reasonable price.
Key Features for Education Consultancies:
TeleCRM comes packed with everything you need for your education consultancy, right from the moment a potential student contacts you to when they enroll. It’s like a super tool that helps you manage all your student interactions smoothly. It has all the features that are mentioned above, and more!
Easy to use Mobile App:
TeleCRM is a dynamic Mobile CRM that operates through calls and WhatsApp.
It’s incredibly simple to use and has all the essential features mentioned earlier, packed into a mobile app.
Your office is drowned in a pool of water due to rain? Are you on holiday but still wish to see how your consultancy is doing? Does your team want to stay connected with students at all times?
Well, worry not!
TeleCRM’s mobile application has got you covered!
So what are you waiting for, book a demo now!
Conclusion:
In this article, we’ve seen:
What is an educational CRM
Why it is important for you
And how to find the best CRM for Education Consultancy
In short, you have all the tools to take your business to the next level. It’s time for you to take action.
Scout the market for the best CRM for education consultancy, see if it matches your business requirements, and then finally make a decision.
Or you can save yourself the trouble and consider TeleCRM. With a comprehensive list of customizations, robust customer support, dynamic mobile app for both Android and iOS, it handles all major CRM functionalities and provides most features that an education consultancy is looking for in a CRM.
What’s good is you get all of this at an unmatchable price.
So don’t hesitate. Take the first step towards upgrading your CRM today!