K12 and higher education institutions are undergoing significant transformations in their operational methods and engagement with various stakeholders, including students, parents, alumni, employers, and faculty. The increasing demand for personalized and immediate services from higher education clients has prompted proactive universities to adopt customer relationship management (CRM) systems to effectively meet these expectations.
CRM systems are software applications designed to automate and manage communications with prospective and current students, employees, alumni, donors, and other members of the institution’s community. These systems compile customer information, such as names, gender, educational background, contact details, marketing materials, and social media interactions, into a centralized database.
In the dynamic landscape of education, leveraging technology is essential to optimize student success.
A typical CRM software, including K12 Management Software serves three key audiences: prospective students, current students, and alumni/donors. This article focuses on the prospective student audience.
This allows for easier access to information and enables personalized and customized messaging through various channels to effectively engage with students in a timely manner. Additionally, CRM systems track every interaction with the customer, providing a comprehensive overview of engagements within a single platform.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM offers a robust platform that can be tailored to the unique needs of K-12 and higher education institutions. By harnessing the power of Dynamics 365, schools can gain valuable insights into student data, streamline administrative processes, and enhance communication with stakeholders.
Customized Student Experience: Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM can be customized to provide a comprehensive view of student information, enabling schools to optimize student success. Through tailored K-12 parent and student portals, stakeholders can access vital information such as school registrations, activities, attendance, coursework, learning standards, incidents, and interventions. This centralized platform facilitates efficient communication and collaboration between parents, guardians, faculty, and staff, fostering a supportive learning environment.
Streamlined Administrative Processes: Digital transformation is key to modernizing administrative processes in education. With Microsoft Power Platform, schools can digitize paperwork and forms, simplifying the application and enrollment process. Moreover, CRM software enables institutions to manage donor data, raise funds, and engage donors effectively, aligning with industry standards for relationship management.
Enhanced Student Engagement: A Student Behavior Management application powered by Power Apps empowers schools to record, track, and encourage positive behavior among students. Additionally, students benefit from features such as checking assignments, grades, test scores, exploring programs and courses, connecting with counselors, and raising tickets for assistance. These functionalities enhance student engagement and support academic success.
Comprehensive Data Analysis: Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM offers powerful analytics capabilities, including Attendance Power BI dashboards integrated with the CRM. This enables administrators to gain actionable insights into attendance trends, course performance, interventions, and behavior incidents. With a comprehensive view of student data, administrators can make informed decisions to support student success.
Responsive Access for Parents and Students: Through a responsive website built on Microsoft Power Apps portals, parents and students can access vital information anytime, anywhere. This user-friendly interface enhances accessibility and transparency, enabling stakeholders to stay informed and engaged in their educational journey.
Personalized communications: This is a critical aspect of education CRM systems, enabling scalable interactions with stakeholders. While it’s impractical to respond individually to every query or concern, CRM platforms empower institutions with virtual assistants capable of providing accurate and relevant responses at scale, minimizing errors and ensuring high levels of relevance.
A CRM system for higher education built on MS Dynamics platform has pre-built automated workflows that expertly distribute prospective students’ details based on geography, course preferences, etc.
The effectiveness of educational institutions hinges on their ability to manage relationships and effectively communicate with various stakeholders, including students, parents, alumni, teachers, and staff. The management of educational organizations is inherently complex, requiring robust data management to organize information and ensure accessibility, as well as seamless operations to optimize efficiency and continuity.
Students, parents, and teachers of the institution are provided with personalized credentials to access a portal where they can retrieve essential information. Through this portal, students can review their course details, parents can monitor their children’s performance, and staff can track various administrative and non-administrative operations to ensure compliance with deadlines and regulations.
This customized portal for schools and educational institutions serves to keep all stakeholders informed about course statuses and other activities. With a centralized database, data duplication is avoided, and the portal is easily accessible to authorized users while being protected by multiple security layers to prevent unauthorized access.
Robust Integration Capabilities
MS Dynamics 365 CRM can be integrated with your existing k12 accounting software, k12 assessment software, k12 help desk software or your existing CRM system. If the institute is already leveraging Office365 then your entire data can be transported to the Dynamics 365 platform through Common Data.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM offers a transformative solution for K-12 and higher education institutions, empowering them to maximize student success. By customizing the platform to meet the unique needs of their organization, schools can streamline administrative processes, enhance student engagement, and leverage data-driven insights to support academic achievement. With Dynamics 365, education becomes more than just a learning experience—it becomes a journey of empowerment and growth for every student.