Competition is also increasing in education and professional development in Switzerland. Yet using more (digital) touchpoints brings hardly any differentiation. Customer insights are the foundation of a company's success — including in education and professional development. Our client runs numerous training and development programmes at several locations. It has an ERP and a content-management system. Until now, customer data was spread across both systems, and lists had to be created manually for campaigns. Automating the many manual activities and tracking customer behaviour across the various digital touchpoints offered the company high added value.
In collaboration with CustomersX®, a CRM for education was successfully implemented. All customer data is now held in one system, and many manual activities are now covered by automations. Instead of individual campaigns, relationships with customers can now be built and managed.
Customer Value-based Decision Making
Customer-centric Transformation
Co-Creation
Customer Management
We can't stress often enough that 70% of all CRM projects fail. The education provider has an ERP system that manages customer registrations for courses. It also uses a content-management system with numerous forms and functions. The customer data gained from that system was integrated manually into the ERP system. Then, to run campaigns, the customer data was extracted manually from the ERP system and loaded into a newsletter tool. The customer-data-maintenance activities were very extensive and highly error-prone.
To implement a CRM for education, we followed our four-step process based on our DTC approach. We used our CRM framework as the starting point to specify the individual tasks and dimensions. Our client favoured the CRM system Microsoft Dynamics and already had an offer from an implementation partner. Because we are independent of any single software vendor, we can offer and implement the optimal software that fits our client exactly. Our CRM consulting is independent and tailored.
As a first step
the starting situation was analysed comprehensively. It emerged that our client already collects extensive customer data — a special situation compared with other companies, most of which collect only little customer data at the various touchpoints. So a first step established that careful planning of the customer-data structure would play an important role in the project. A further analysis step made clear that, contrary to the original orientation towards a CRM system, a marketing-automation system with CRM functionality is much better suited to the client. Given the large number of contacts, licence costs had to be watched. Another finding was that only limited resources would be available for operation within the company, so the application and processes had to be kept as simple as possible. A final central finding was that the individual training and development programmes build on one another, making cross-selling highly important for the company.
As a second step
a customer-relationship concept was developed. It became clear that the emphasis of the system's use should be on the post-purchase phase. Although the systems offer functions such as chatbots, landing pages and social-media management, the system should be geared towards email campaigns and the website. In particular, individual website tracking and automated interaction with website visitors should be covered by the system. Many companies 'misuse' their CRM system mainly for customer acquisition, whereas the systems offer considerably greater added value precisely in customer retention. For a CRM for education, it was also important to set out the customer-data structure precisely. The systems usually offer three levels: lists, tags and fields. For each company, it has to be examined how these three data levels can best be used. Lists are coarse groupings for launching campaigns as efficiently as possible. But too many lists shouldn't be created, since this form of segmentation is very coarse and, when the customer relationship changes, this information level always has to be updated. Tags are information used for different stages and activities within customer-relationship management. For example, downloading a timetable or attending an information evening can be stored via a tag in the system. Tags should be used for information that can change often and that is used for targeted outreach. Fields are used for a customer's basic data — phone number, email, gender and so on are best represented in fields. A central challenge arises when customers book several offerings, courses and so on, and this information is stored in a field or several fields have to be created. In general, the effort and complexity of building and maintaining the data structure is underestimated in CRM projects.
As a third step
the different applications were presented. Systems such as SAP, Microsoft and Salesforce were ruled out in the first round, as they are too complex to handle. Freshworks and Insightly didn't fully convince at the functional level. Zoho CRM and Zoho marketing automation were likewise too complex to use. Given the available resources, ActiveCampaign and HubSpot made the shortlist. Both systems focus on marketing automation but also offer basic CRM functionality. We hope it's clear that there is no single super-system — a trade-off has to be made. When clients have little of their own comprehensive CRM competency, the wrong system is too often chosen. In the end, the client chose ActiveCampaign. Two or three functions aren't ideal, but its ease of use, combined with 60% lower licence costs than HubSpot, was convincing.
As a final step
the application was implemented. Our IT team built a middleware to connect the ERP and content-management system to ActiveCampaign via API, so that data is updated automatically between the systems. Numerous automations were also set up. When a customer orders a timetable, it is sent automatically and followed up after three weeks to ask whether further information is needed. When a customer registers provisionally, they receive an automatic email four weeks before the course starts asking them to confirm their registration promptly. Automating the data exchange and a large part of customer interactions is a great relief for the education provider. CRM for education also makes it possible to run cross-selling activities systematically on the basis of valuable customer insights.
In summary
CRM for education offers very great added value in terms of efficiency in internal and external processes. In terms of effectiveness, individualised web tracking and automated email sequences can significantly increase cross-selling and customer loyalty. It's worth mentioning that the project was also so successful because management and staff are characterised by an above-average level of customer centricity, which considerably simplified the necessary transformation.
*We take confidentiality towards our clients seriously. The name has been changed; the results are real.
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