How to Choose the Right CRM for Any Coaching Institute?

The how in the question can only be answered with a powerful what and why! 

So let’s begin with a brief description of what a CRM is and why it is important for your coaching institute. 

What is a Coaching Institute CRM? 

CRM is customer relationship management software that helps coaching institutes digitise their admissions process. With the right CRM, the entire admissions process can be managed on a single laptop screen, from lead integration and management to nurturing and maximizing conversions. 

Now, let’s have a look at, 

Why is shifting to CRM important for your coaching institute?

As per a recent report by Statista, CRM is the leading enterprise software segment, and customer orientation is of great importance in digital business environments in order to stand out from the competition. 

The industry you are catering to, i.e., the education industry, is itself highly competitive, so to stand out from the competition, you need to change your approach. Your approach should be technologically sound and financially efficient. 

Shifting your manual admission process to a digitised one via CRM is like saying, “Out with the old and in with the new, but something better!”

The following are the key areas where a CRM can help you: 

• Accessibility: The data from every source (even walk-ins) can be integrated and easily accessed on your laptop or mobile screen via a coaching institute CRM. 
• Efficiency: CRM helps your admission team to be more productive by replacing manual efforts with automation. 
• Accuracy: 0% lead leakage and elimination of duplicate leads provide accurate data and hot leads to focus on. No junks! 

Knowing All About A CRM

In this section, we are going to tell you about the features of an ideal CRM that can provide you with better knowledge of your leads, clear segmentation, excellent customer retention, speedier communication, and protection of data privacy.

Elementary Features of A CRM

The following are the features that any standard or classic CRM possesses: 

• Lead Integration: Manages all the leads by integrating them from different third-party sources, such as Facebook, Google Ads, your websites, etc. 
• Communication Channels: Provides various communication channels to nurture the leads. For example, Whatsapp, Bulk SMS, Emails, Calling, and Video Calls. 
• Analytical Reports: This represents the analysis of the lead status, their conversion rate, and even your employees’ performance. 

Key Features of A Coaching Institute’s CRM

There are thousands of coaching institute CRM overpowering the market. Choosing the right one among these is a tedious task! 

To make it easy for you, we have summed up 12 key features of a CRM as per the use case of a coaching institute that you need to keep in mind before investing in a CRM: 

1. Multiple Lead Generation Channels 

Imagine if you just bought an office stationery organiser but forgot to buy the stationery!

Now, without stationery, the organiser is of no use. 

The same concept is applied to the CRM, if you haven’t got the leads integrated within it, then how will it manage, nurture, and convert the leads?  

To automatically get this sorted, you need to look for a CRM that is open to integrating with multiple lead generation channels. For example, Facebook, Google Ads, Just Dial, Sulekha, publisher websites (e.g., Shiksha, Collegedunia, Careers360, etc.), and your coaching institute’s websites. 

This feature ensures 0% lead leakage, which in turn helps ensure 100% faster responses. So basically, the integration of multiple lead generation channels is the cornerstone of a good CRM. 

2. Multiple Stages/Rule Engines 

Managing the leads in a pipeline view provides a quick overview of the entire admission funnel. Your leads are categorized into different admission stages, and when filtered, these leads are distinguished by colour or tags. By adding custom tags to every lead, you can filter pipelines according to the labels. For example, you can segment your leads based on their location, language, lead source, retention, and much more.

Most CRM software has only a single pipeline, so you should look for a CRM that lets you segment and label your leads by automatically updating their status. The pipeline is also beneficial for effective lead management—you can drag and drop leads from one admission stage to another, and even auto-allocate the leads to your counselors. 

3. Accurate Lead profile and Status

Remember, Sun Tzu, said, “If you know your audience and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred emails.” This saying is one hundred per cent applicable here. 

A thorough lead profile with all the necessary details, including the lead source and its present status, is one of the most practical CRM features. Your CRM should let you attach files, add activity reminders, and link invoices and quotes to the lead profiles. By gathering all the information about your prospect on one screen, you get a quick and insightful overview of their profile. You can use this detailed contact information for email campaigns and lead nurturing, including the person’s name in the email for high-level personalization.

Additionally, it makes the counselor’s life much simpler because they can access information about all prior correspondence and plan their meetings, calls, and marketing initiatives accordingly. 

4. Smooth Lead Tracker 

Today we have various fitness and aneroid trackers to track our health and system goals, but the tracker that can fix your annual revenue goal is the lead tracker!

Tracking your lead from its source to its destination will help you understand your prospect’s behaviour so that you can train your counselors and telecallers accordingly. 

Tracking the lead source also provides you with a summary of how a particular student found your institution. Having this knowledge enables you to plan targeted marketing campaigns or send your leads pertinent content to read. Also, when the number of new leads decreases, checking their source can point you towards the lower- and higher-performing traffic channels.

Also, you can opt for follow-up tracking, which means that each time a counselor contacts a prospect, a record of their call or email is added to the CRM system. You can add remarks on whether the lead seemed interested or explicitly said no and shouldn’t be bothered again.

5. Inbuilt Reports Dashboard

Your coaching centre requires a CRM with an integrated reporting dashboard. The CRM can measure and analyse performance across multiple centres, franchises, teams, and marketing channels. It should be able to monitor counselor performance in real-time and track the conversion funnel and marketing ROI. 

The dashboard should comprehend the data in the form of graphs and charts, these are easy to read and you can instantly notice trends in your counselor’s performance, email campaign targets, lead conversions etc. 

While looking for the report dashboard, you should also consider the below-mentioned features:

• A single-view dashboard to have an overview of your overall marketing efforts
• Counselor performance dashboard to measure team performance.
• Ad channel performance to measure ROI across paid channels
• Publisher panel to analyse the attribution of leads between different publishers, such as Shiksha, Collegedunia, Collegedekho, etc. 

6. Common calendar and Reminders

It might seem like a bit extra, but when your admissions team has to manage thousands of leads, they need someone to remind them if a lead hasn’t been contacted for a certain amount of time. This will prevent your counselors from missing out on leads, and they will also be able to convert some cold leads! 

To make your admissions team’s work easier and more efficient, choose CRM software that includes a common team calendar. An integrated calendar is ideal for managing meetings, events, and scheduled follow-ups for leads. You can link customer profiles with events to quickly see who and when you’re going to meet.

Some CRMs do have meeting scheduling tools that make it easier to find a time for a meeting that works for everyone. Instead of lengthy email correspondence, you can propose multiple times and dates to other participants via email and let them pick a suitable time.

7. Methodical Task management

You must have played the game of ‘Building Blocks’ in your childhood, where you had to arrange the blocks systematically to build something out of them. The same concept applies to task management. You have to systematically arrange and manage your work blocks to build a sustainable workflow out of them. 

When you combine various tasks like calling and emailing in one system, managing the pipeline becomes more effective. Task management is a helpful CRM feature that gives you a quick overview of what needs to be done and lets you set deadlines.

8. Access Over Mobile Phones 

Through various channels, thousands of students come to your coaching center with a range of questions. A major chunk of students directly visit and have a one-on-one conversation, or maybe your counselor visits multiple prospects per day. To be efficient at their job, they need to regularly access the lead database to gather information or update data.

For this, make sure that the CRM system has an interactive mobile interface or application. With the help of a Mobile CRM, your counselors can read and add customer data anytime and anywhere.

9. Bulk Upload Feature

Earlier, you must have had hundreds of Excel sheets containing all your lead data. Now that you want to switch to a CRM, you must be concerned about your existing data. This can be solved with a feature known as bulk upload, where you can push all your Excel sheet data into the CRM. 

Also, do make sure that if by any chance, something happens with your system or there is any technical error, the data is recoverable and safe!

10. Real-Time Integration

Wouldn’t it be sorted if you could find anything and everything in one place? Imagine you open your laptop to see the lead status, and the lead has already converted but is stuck with some post-admission formality. You just clicked once and you were navigated to the ERP! Isn’t this efficient as well as tough to digest? 

But this is absolutely possible if you find a CRM that provides real-time integration. It should easily integrate with your ERP and all your third-party vendors. A good CRM works as a mediator between different business processes and gathers all the relevant data you need for efficient sales. 

11. Customisable and role-based Access 

If your coaching institute has a large admissions team, not all information is relevant to every counselor or tele-caller. Look for a CRM that lets you set role-based access to certain information. You can customise every team member’s software experience by only showcasing their own leads and their status. However, the admin can have access to every counselor’s data. 

12. Strong Customer Support 

When you buy something, you expect to have a good customer experience. So now, when you are about to buy a CRM, you have to look beyond the features it provides. The CRM is no doubt an easy-to-use and good-to-go application for you, but a significant question here is, “How can you move your existing team to the CRM?” 

This can only be done with a very supportive and efficient customer success team. This team should consist of a bunch of tech-savvy people who will guide you through the product, its functionalities, and points of improvisation; and at times, whenever you are stuck with any of the features, the customer support team should be at your back. 

Additionally, the CRM provider should understand the concept of customisation! For them, customer satisfaction should be their ultimate goal, which is impossible to attain without a solid customer connection. A dedicated account manager should be kept in touch with the customers to customise the CRM as per their needs to organise their admission journey. 

Wrap up  

After going through all the key features of coaching institute CRM, you now know the points to take into consideration before making this big investment. Still, we would suggest that you carefully go through your use case before choosing a CRM that has to be in line with the academic, recruitment, marketing, and future goals of the institution.

Also, remember that research is vital! It’s always a good idea to read reviews, try demos, and speak with a consultant before making a final decision. You can include multiple team members in the brainstorming, testing, and decision-making processes, as they will be the ones ultimately using it!

Extraaedge is trusted by 8000+ users and 300+ institutes all over the globe. It caters to prominent coaching institutes like ICA, Narayana, and Aha Guru and can definitely help you with your customised coaching CRM too. 

Again, don’t fall for words; see it for yourself by Booking A Demo Now!