CRM Maturity


In 2007 JISC funded a study which focused on issues with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in UK Universities:  three stages of CRM maturity were identified[1]. Whether you are a university or college you should be able to identify the CRM maturity of your institution. It is important also to get involved in some of the user groups that are available for users of certain systems as talking to colleagues from other institutions can help you understand your current maturity and also help you consider the different pain points that can be avoided or need to be navigated, particularly when moving between these CRM maturity levels.  

 

 

Peripheral  

Tactical

Strategic

 

To help you identify your CRM Maturity more information can be found in the Self Analysis Framework developed by the University of Nottingham for JISC. 

 

There are number of other ways that can help you identify your CRM maturity for BCE, these can include benchmarking your institution against other institutions, although benchmarking against the public and private sector may also be useful.

 

In the Higher Education sector you could benchmark your institution based on HEBCI data/results. Although it is important to take into account that an institution can be good at BCE activity and can see a good ROI but this does not necessarily mean that they are good at CRM. In the Further Education Sector there are a number of measures that could be used, details of which can be found in this detailed Business Case template produced by LSIS. UCISA  annually provides a list of systems used across the HE sectors and identifies whether they are using a CRM system, a copy of which can be found here. There are some useful CRM groups available on LinkedIn, the social networking site, that may aid you in identify your CRM maturity level including one that is focused on CRM for Education.  

 

This handbook will help you navigate some of the key areas at a strategic, operational and practical level, no matter what your CRM maturity level. 

Footnotes

  1. KSA Partnership (2007). Study of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) issues in UK Higher Education Institutions, JISC Final Report.