Now more than ever, the decisions we make and the way we spend our budget dollars matters. The way we interact with, recruit, and retain students is more crucial than ever before in achieving admissions and enrollment goals, and at the center of these things is how we maintain our relationships when things are at their most uncertain. In the world of higher ed, a CRM is a necessity when it comes to managing relationships with current and prospective students, and there are several things to consider when it comes time to decide which CRM is right for your institution, including price, functionality, and training needs.
For many people, “CRM” is synonymous with “Salesforce.” Being a leader in the industry, Salesforce blazed a trail in the market and remains one of the most reputable CRM systems available today. This is one of the reasons TargetX is built on the Salesforce platform: it allows us to offer our customers the stability and flexibility needed to continue operations in the most uncertain of times. If you’re considering Salesforce, you’re joining hundreds of thousands of schools, government organizations, and businesses around the world also using the platform. At the end of the day, you can’t go wrong using the top rated CRM platform.
However, is Salesforce the right fit for the unique challenges of higher ed recruiting and admissions? More and more schools believe so and are starting to understand the huge benefits of the Salesforce platform. However, Salesforce is a complicated world and designed with large corporations in mind, which requires customization to meet the unique requirements of higher education. As a result, schools come to a crossroads: build their own customized system on Salesforce or leverage an established product that is built on Salesforce such as TargetX.
We’re here to help you break down the pros and cons of building vs. buying, and why, at the end of the day, hundreds of schools decided that partnering with a company founded by and for higher education experts was the best path forward.
A mature solution with twelve years on the market and implemented at over 350 schools, TargetX prides itself on its robust product roadmap. Our products are designed to support you throughout the recruitment process and beyond. And what’s more, they are always being updated in conjunction with industry needs, because innovation is in everything we do, from our mission statement to the way we approach new projects. Our continued innovation ensures that our system is the best it can be in addressing the ever-changing needs of our clients.
And because we know higher ed, we know that your most precious resource is time. Whether that’s time spent manually entering data into a system, time spent implementing a new system (for the Admissions team or the IT team of worse, both) or anything in between, the less time you spend doing manual tasks, the more time your staff can dedicate to what matters most: the students on your campus now and in the future. After all, that’s what we’re all here for, right? We think so, too. For that reason, the TargetX suite was built to be mobile-first, and can be integrated directly with your SIS, so that you’re no longer spending valuable time populating fields and looking for data: it’s all right there at your fingertips. Building a CRM with Salesforce directly often necessitates many disparate third party products, all with disjointed user interfaces. Keep things simple and let us do the heavy lifting on that end. TargetX is created for the user, with drag-and-drop interfaces that don’t require any outside coding for use.
However, as valuable as we know time is, we would be remiss to leave out the elephant in the room: budget. A common industry complaint is that projects are typically finished after the allotted timeline and over budget, which isn’t beneficial to anyone involved. A study done by the Harvard Business Review found that one in six projects is completed over budget, some by as much 200%. With implementations of this magnitude, that extra cost is typically incurred due to the need for outside consultancies. With TargetX, you have the promise of a predictable annual subscription cost, which includes upgrades and support. From system implementation and beyond, we’re here for you with direct access to our team when you need help, without the hidden costs. You’ll meet your entire team at the beginning of your project, which includes everyone from your Account Executive, Implementation Consultant, Project Manager, to your Customer Success Manager and Support team. TargetX works as a team to support you and your needs without a middle man.
In addition to our strong in-house customer support team, TargetX has an active customer community, so that you can exchange tips, tricks, and best practices with other schools as needed. This allows you to build relationships with schools across the country who are facing the same challenges and using the same system you are. And, remember that roadmap we talked about earlier? The Community is constantly being updated as we release new features, updates, and announcements to the system, so that you’re never left in the dark about what’s going on. We want you to use the system to the best of your ability, and the Community helps ensure just that.
And finally, we know things can change on a dime. TargetX is built for scale, with the ability to leverage the entire Salesforce platform as your needs expand. Our updates and releases are reviewed and vetted by the Salesforce team, which means you never need to worry about security, or something breaking without us knowing about it. Since everything has the Salesforce stamp of approval, by the time it hits your campus, it’s ready to go.
Choosing a CRM, and a partner to help you implement it, is a decision that can impact your entire campus, and we know choices like that aren’t taken lightly. There are plenty of options when it comes to a CRM, but what can make a difference in the long run is the partnership that comes along with that system. Our relationship with our clients doesn’t end after implementation. In fact, it’s just the beginning.
Ready to learn more about the TargetX suite? Schedule a demo!
