CRM for universities and higher education
Increase admission rates and improve student and staff communications with Pipedrive’s university CRM solution. Track every interaction with your stakeholders across different platforms, anywhere in the world.
What is a higher education CRM?
Customer relationship management (CRM) for higher education helps you streamline student recruitment, enrollment, admissions and retention by providing a comprehensive view of every contact. Reach out at the right time to provide a great experience throughout the entire student lifecycle.
Customize course communication
Create tailored communications with prospective and existing students. Stand out from the competition with meaningful touch-points across the student journey.
Nurture every relationship
Spark, develop and build relationships with students, staff, alumni and donors. Use CRM solutions to improve student retention by optimizing constituent and stakeholder support.
Enable remote flexibility
Streamline campus management by giving students and staff access to a flexible online education cloud. Make learning accessible from anywhere in the world and future-proof your institution.
Automate enrollment processes
Reach the right students at the right time with automated updates. Use your student information system to send submission reminders, interview dates and offer letters without delay.
Boost donor support
Enhance event management and alumni relations by showing how donations have made an impact. Engage with donors to boost contributions to your fundraising income streams.
Speak to students wherever they are
Integrate your higher ed CRM with the tools and platforms your students are already using. Make communications seamless with social media integrations.
How CRM software can help you generate more enrollments
Strong, real-time communication is key for attracting more students and competing with other universities. With more learners attending classes remotely, providing consistent, reliable and relevant communications is now table stakes.
With an academic CRM, students and staff members alike have a complete overview of the entire student lifecycle. Every application, touch-point and interaction can be found in one place.
Higher education CRM systems like Pipedrive also let you support enrollment candidates with scheduling tools, reminders and eSignature features, empowering them to complete their application without friction. Get the insight and functionality needed to deliver a superior journey to students, staff and alumni.
Understand which channels bring in the most students
Get insights on where your best students are coming from with channel metrics. Optimize your recruitment outreach to boost enrollment numbers.
With Pipedrive, gain access to detailed reports to make data-driven decisions that reach more prospective students.
Discover Pipedrive’s insights and reports for university CRM systems
Keep every student updated throughout their enrollment journey
Create great user experiences with automated milestones from application to acceptance. Effortlessly update thousands of prospective students at each stage of their enrollment without lifting a finger.
Pipedrive’s education CRM software means no more anxious emails from applicants and no missed submission deadlines.
Find out how to automate your admissions process with Pipedrive
Reach more students with flexible CRM integrations
Make it easy for on-the-go students to get in touch with you anytime, anywhere with popular mobile apps connected directly to your academic CRM.
Install and integrate apps from inside Pipedrive to save time and effort. Connect all the tools you need in one place, seamlessly.
Learn about how Pipedrive keeps you flexible
How does school CRM software work to support student engagement?
Supporting hundreds of thousands of students through years of education can be complicated. Pipedrive’s education CRM software makes it easy to provide support at every touch-point in the student experience lifecycle. From enrollment to graduation, manage recruitment and communications from within your CRM platform.
- Build a pipeline to fit your application process and streamline enrollments
- Record key student data such as course selection, grades, financial support and accommodation contracts
- Get an overview of every student, alumni, donor and their communication history
- Integrate with tools used across your university and build enrollment automations with Zapier
- Automate acceptance offers, SMS updates and course reminders to keep applicants up to date and promote student success
- Track email marketing activity, including opens and clicks, to see how applicants and students are engaging with your school
How to get started with your CRM for higher education
- 1. Create applicant, student, teacher and alumni segments with custom fields
When you first log in to Pipedrive, you’ll see a visual representation of your enrollment pipeline. Here, you can customize application stages and build new offer flows to manage students across every department.
Create different pipeline workflows for inbound inquiries based on enrollment cycle stages. Get visibility on how likely a prospective student is to apply, as well as inactive applications that need immediate attention.
- 2. Integrate new enrollment forms and application stages into your academic CRM system
Every touch-point a student has with your school will be collected, managed and stored in your CRM. You’ll have a 360-degree view of all student enrollment data as soon as a phone call is received or an application form is submitted.
Automatically assign tasks and due dates against enrollments to ensure applications stay on track. Diagnose and fix registration and retention issues by managing your student communications in Pipedrive’s CRM for universities.
- 3. Build your application follow-up workflows, including key touch-points
To maximize student sign-ups, you need to follow up leads with timely and relevant pricing, course and application information. Doing this manually for thousands of students at different enrollment points is time-consuming and confusing.
With workflow automation built into higher education CRM solutions, your sales force can run these tasks on autopilot. Send personalized email updates automatically and at scale, providing the right students with the right information, at the right time. Streamline your enrollment officer’s activities and remove mundane work from their day.
- 4. Set up new student marketing campaigns
To nurture students through their journey, you must be able to send personalized, customer support-style messaging. This means aligning your recruitment campaigns with their enrollment motivations.
With your applicant segments set up, save time and target campaigns with automated messages. Use marketing automation to provide transparent updates on enrollment progression and encourage applicants to get involved with university programs like clubs and student associations.
Streamline your higher ed workflows with the best CRM integrations
The right integrations will supercharge your university administration. Streamline your enrollment process by connecting emails, SMS and calendars and confirm offers with eSignature tools.
Here are some essential integrations that every higher education institution can benefit from.
Outlook
Sync every contact from any email provider including Outlook, Google and iCloud. Choose one or two-way sync to connect directly into Pipedrive to stay in control.
Explore Pipedrive’s Outlook integration.
Google Calendar
Never miss a meeting with easy calendar integrations. Enter your availability into Pipedrive and share a link that lets contacts automatically book appointments.
Discover Pipedrive’s Google Calendar integration.
Microsoft Teams
Help university staff work more efficiently by connecting Microsoft Teams with Pipedrive. Get notifications, schedule views and share files all in one place.
Work better with Pipedrive’s Microsoft Teams integration.
DocuSign
Send offers securely by selecting a template from your Pipedrive dashboard. Students receive a link to electronically sign their acceptance form on the go.
Enroll students with Pipedrive’s DocuSign integration.
Zapier
Connect more than 3,000 other apps and platforms to your Pipedrive with Zapier. Zapier is an automation tool that helps Pipedrive become an even better enrollment hub.
Get more done with Pipedrive’s Zapier integration.
JustCall
Make and receive calls and text messages with one click. JustCall integrates with Pipedrive to help you make, deliver and track all of your calls directly from your dashboard.
Stay connected with Pipedrive’s JustCall integration.
Higher education CRM FAQs
- What are universities using CRM for?
Customer relationship management in higher education is being used to track and support every aspect of the student journey – from admissions to graduation and beyond. Savvy universities rely on CRM software solutions, for example, for everything from streamlining recruitment and enrollment processes to automating and managing communications with prospective and existing students, alumni, donors and staff.
With the right student lifecycle management system, your university can easily compile and access key, cross-channel information, making it simple to deliver timely, tailored messaging while monitoring interactions with your entire community.
- How to choose email marketing software?
To choose the best marketing software, compare different services and choose the one that fits your needs and budget best. Normally, top considerations for email marketing software include email automation, scalability (whether you can grow your subscriber list as your business grows), reliability and user ratings, support and, last but not least, pricing.
- What is the best CRM for higher education?
The best CRM for school management is one that meets the unique needs of higher education admissions teams. Ideally, you should choose a new CRM that not only supports automated management of student applications, records and enrollment procedures, but that makes it easy to track and follow up on student leads and prospects generated by your school’s marketing campaigns.
Key features to look for include a visual, customizable pipeline, complete student data and communications history, insightful reporting and easy access to powerful administration integrations like Zapier, DocuSign, Google Calendar and Microsoft Teams.
- How can Pipedrive CRM help higher education institutions?
As a simple but full-featured customer relationship management system, Pipedrive CRM helps universities and other higher ed institutions stand out, compete and effectively manage stakeholder relations. Whether established or growing, your school will benefit from the ability to provide faster, more personalized service through workflow automation, data-driven decision-making and targeted campaign tracking.
With a range of pricing options and add-ons available, Pipedrive’s academic CRM solution is ideal for higher education institutions seeking an intuitive, cost-effective and fully supported alternative to other CRMs on the market.