When you think of industries most likely to use a customer relationship management system (CRM), you probably think of retail organizations or businesses that sell goods or services. This is quite accurate, since the primary purpose of a CRM is to use technology to market to customers, an important component of any e-commerce enterprise. But there are many more industries that rely on CRM technology to thrive, including health care, financial services, non-profit organizations and more.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll focus on different industries and how CRM technology can improve operational efficiency, customer service, marketing, sales and more.

To start, let’s focus on an industry you may not have associated with CRM – higher education.

While CRM is a fairly common practice in the corporate world, colleges and universities have been slower to adopt the technology. But considering the revenue of U.S. colleges and universities is estimated to be over $558 billion this year, applying a CRM approach to establish strong, long-lasting relationships with students and alumni can prove extremely beneficial.

When tailored for higher education, CRM systems are particularly vital to institutions looking to step up their recruitment of prospective students. With automated workflows, recruitment campaigns consisting of emails, text messages, social media messaging and more, can be managed, monitored, tracked and fine-tuned during the all-important annual enrollment cycle.

As a Salesforce Partner, Enable Consulting is ready, able and willing to help your college or university begin or expand its digital transformation. Imagine how efficient the Admissions team will be when the entire student lifecycle is housed in one place – from prospect to applicant, admitted student to enrolled student, graduate to alumni to donor. Whether you choose to use Salesforce or another CRM to market to prospective students, all information lives in the system, making it efficient and simple for recruiters to communicate with and market to the next incoming class.

With today’s higher education industry become more competitive than ever, a CRM solution can help differentiate an institution by providing a personalized, unsurpassed experience from a student’s very first interaction.

Let us tell you more about how Enable Consulting can help you initiate a CRM system, or expand your existing CRM to help make better connections, decisions and ultimately, grow enrollment.

Contact us today.