The 7 Best CRM Systems for Higher Education

Zoho CRM is number one on our list for its comprehensive list of features at an affordable cost. You’ll have access to a suite of marketing tools, such as web forms, website tracking, and Twitter keywords, which help attract student enrollees. Moreover, you’ll have access to contact management tools and customizable reports to manage your admissions, student, and faculty data. Likewise, you can utilise its visual sales pipeline and automated lead scoring to track enrollees.

There is no doubt that Zoho is tooled with powerful features,  it could include more lead communication tools, such as website chatbots and instant messaging apps outside of its top-level subscription tier, the Plus plan.. If you want more communication features, Freshsales offers live chat, instant messaging apps, email auto-responses, and even native VOIP (voice over internet protocol) across all its plans.

However, Zoho CRM has a lot more to offer—for example, a unified inbox and calendar to keep track of your schedule and events. In addition, you’ll have features to help you manage your faculty and staff, including team KPIs, individual targets, team dashboards, team hierarchies, and organisational KPIs.

Freshsales offers one of the most affordable CRM plans, offering institutions excellent value for money. Likewise, it equips you with reliable communication tools to connect with and keep track of students, including live chat and messaging apps. The best thing about it is that it even includes native VOIP (voice-over internet protocol), which allows you to dial and receive calls over the internet.

However, we think Freshsales could use more lead-capturing tools, like website visitor tracking. This is where Zoho shines as it offers Zoho SalesIQ integration, helping you engage and collect information from your leads.

Regardless, you cannot deny that Freshsales houses various practical tools for storing and organising data, such as list custom reports, a chart builder, list segmentation, and duplicate detection. These are extremely valuable in building reports and managing data from your prospective, current, and former students.

FullFabric is a CRM system that specialises in higher education, providing solutions to boost enrolments, drive revenue, and improve student-faculty relationships. It offers three types of products: Origin, Core, and Foundation.

Foundation CRM gives you tools to track every interaction with and the progress of each student, including real-time tracking, custom forms, dashboards, and reporting. Origin focuses on admission and enrolment progress. Lastly, Core is a unique platform that lets students manage their schedules and course materials, foster relationships with faculty, and manage campus life. From lead capture and prospect qualification, to event management and pre-enrolment communication, Full Fabric lets you take charge of the entire student lifecycle.

Anthology Reach is another CRM software that caters specifically for universities, with tools that give you insights into your applicants, enrollees, and students. It’s especially good at managing the recruitment and admission process. In addition, it‘s efficient in student retention, alumni engagement, and career advancement.  By utilising tools, such as the reach scoring model and success planning, you can collect data and develop strategies to help your students enhance their experience and performance at school.

Some users complain about its outdated and non-intuitive interface, making it difficult to learn and use. If you’re looking for a CRM with a user-friendly interface, we recommend Freshsales. Aside from providing step-by-step onboarding assistance, it’s easy to set up and use. It has a highly intuitive interface that’s easy to understand and adapt to.

Although its user interface (UI) is quite dated, Maestro SIS by BocaVox gives users  an easy-to-use and intuitive interface. For example, you can sort applicants, students, and alums into groups through drag and drop. This makes it easier to send group messages and emails by category. Customising forms and reports to mirror your school's business processes takes less effort too. Likewise, adjusting your system to accommodate your university's growing demands is simple, which shows the system is also highly scalable.

With a highly configurable, cloud-based system, and a slew of practical tools, including admissions management, class scheduling, activity tracking, and billing and invoicing, Maestro takes a bulk of responsibilities off your hands.

If there are any complaints, they are about the lack of user permission levels, which are essential in protecting sensitive data. If you want a solid team infrastructure on your system, we recommend Zoho CRM. Zoho CRM is programmed with team hierarchies, which allows you to set up internal teams to keep information within a group. It also has data restrictions based on roles, so you can control which of your users can access sensitive data.

Blackbaud CRM made a name for helping non-profit organisations raise funds. It's built with tools designed to connect with donors, organise fundraising activities, and track donations. But beyond its reputation, Blackbaud also flourishes in the academic world, giving institutions a helping hand when it comes to cultivating relationships with applicants, students, and alums.

But because of its reliable fundraising features, such as payment processing, donation tracking, as well as donor and grant management, you'll have the tools to manage scholarships, awards, and promotions.

What also makes Blackbaud part of this list is that it's one of the most user-friendly CRM systems for higher education. You can easily customise forms and reports with just a few clicks, saving your team time and costs for training.

The downside is, reports are rigid and difficult to customise. Some aren’t even configurable at all. If you want to modify your platform to accommodate your needs, Zoho CRM has custom dashboards, fields, task boards, and objects to reflect your business processes and accommodate your needs.

Jenzabar One brings high-quality CRM software to higher education with top-notch usability and design. It’s programmed with user-friendly tools (workflow management, fundraising management, eLearning, and analytics) that makes managing enrollment, fundraising, online learning, and student retention easier.

A good example of this, is its Financial Aid feature. It's important for any institution to offer well-managed financial assistance as it can influence many potential students' decisions. Fortunately, its Financial Aid feature eliminates the fuss around awarding scholarships and financial grants. To elaborate, the software enables you to identify the right students and appropriate financial aid by automating a big chunk of administrative tasks. This includes creating reports and leveraging on smart data analysis, helping you meet your goals while providing learners with meaningful opportunities.

However, some users complain about its buggy system. If you want a smooth experience navigating the system, Freshsales provides a simple and intuitive interface that’s easy and hassle-free to use.