Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools are software solutions designed to help businesses and professionals manage their interactions and relationships with clients, leads, and prospects. These tools are widely used across various industries to streamline communication, organize data, and enhance customer engagement.

As an education consultant or college counselor, how do you keep track of each student’s application status, preferences, and needs? How do you ensure that every inquiry, every application, and every interaction is followed up promptly? To streamline these concerns and many others, investing in an education CRM tool can offer several advantages:

1. Centralized Information: Maintain a single repository for student and parent details, reducing data loss risks.
   

2. Effective Communication: Utilize features like automated messaging for timely updates and personalized communication.
   

3. Lead and Inquiry Tracking: Efficiently manage inquiries, track leads, and monitor student progress through consultation.
   

4. Task and Appointment Management: Stay organized with built-in calendars and task management, ensuring no critical deadlines are missed.
   

5. Analytics and Reporting: Evaluate performance with analytics, tracking key indicators for continuous improvement and informed decision-making.
   

6. Scalability and Growth: Easily scale as the consultancy grows, accommodating more students, inquiries, and engagements without compromising efficiency.
   

In essence, a CRM tool enhances efficiency, communication, and workflow optimization for education consultants, contributing to improved service delivery and client satisfaction. In this blog, we have listed the 10 best education CRM tools built specifically for college counselors, admissions counselors, and independent education consultants currently available on the market.

10 Best Education Consultant CRM Tools

1. EduAgent

EduAgent CRM is a specialized customer relationship management solution tailored for educational consultants and agencies. This platform enables seamless student data management, inquiry tracking, and communication, empowering consultants to optimize workflows, enhance client interactions, and effectively guide students through the enrollment process, ultimately improving overall consultancy efficiency. EduAgent is an intuitive and simplified way for education consultants to streamline workflow but currently only supports the English language on its platform.

Key Features: 

• Provides a secure portal for efficient communication with leads. This feature allows consultants to stay in touch with prospects, answer inquiries, and track progress through a centralized timeline.

Price: 

• $37 — $199 per month, $20 — $150 per year (free trial available). 

• You also can try EduagentCRM with the 30-Day Money Back Guarantee.
  

2. Meritto

Tailored specifically for domestic and study abroad agencies, as well as overseas education consultants, Meritto’s Study Abroad and Education Consultant CRM boasts user-friendly features. The platform empowers admissions counselors and education consultants to effortlessly gather and centralize student inquiries, personalize engagements, handle document management seamlessly, and process fee payments instantly. While Meritto provides a lot of essential features that education consultants require, its interface can seem overwhelming to navigate for anyone new to CRM tools.

Key Features:

• Niaa, a 24/7 conversational AI chatbot, automates personalized engagement throughout the enrollment journey, offering virtual support on both the Web and WhatsApp.

Price: 

• No pricing information is available, but a free demo can be requested from the Meritto website. 
  

3. LeadSquared

As counselors work on connecting with students, LeadSquared takes care of behind-the-scenes tasks like distributing inquiries, assigning counselors, and updating lead stages. LeadSquared helps consultants easily analyze performance by channels, teams, and locations to make informed decisions, optimize their budget, and increase student admission rates. One of the pros of LeadSquared is that it supports English, Hindi, Indonesian, Portuguese Brazilian, Spanish Latin America, and Vietnamese on its platform. However, users have highlighted that LeadSquared’s current integration options can be insufficient and request expanded functionality to connect with other workflow tools.

Key Features:

• Strong tracking feature for every activity from student conversations and website visits to application drop-offs, to build a tailor-made journey for every applicant.

Price: 

• $300 — $1800 per month, billed annually.
  

4. Slate

Slate is designed exclusively for higher education. The software boasts users among 1,800 colleges and universities for application and student lifecycle management. Using Slate helps to better manage relationships with prospects, applicants, and admitted students through the use of automation, personalized outreach, and bespoke applications that fit the unique needs of the institution. Slate offers a bulk of essential features for education consultants like application tracking and data management, but lacks customer service, YoY reporting, and training and user support. 

Key Features

• Free to use tool with queries and reports tracking, student data management, event management, and application review.

Price: Free

5. Salesforce Education Cloud

The Salesforce Education Cloud is a CRM platform that powers connected constituent experiences. It enables users to manage engagements with students, alumni, faculty & staff in one place. With products and solutions for recruitment & admissions, student experience, advancement, and operations, institutions can use Education Cloud across the entire education journey. A key benefit is that institutions have access to purpose-built education products and solutions as well as tools like Tableau, Mulesoft, and Slack. However, users have reported that adding more students to the inventory can be challenging and the generated reports need better organization of information. 

Key Features

• Efficiently manage leads with automated follow-up reminders, and calculate commissions while generating invoices to college.

Price: 

• $81.25 — $138.75 per month, billed annually. 
  

6. Zoho Education CRM

Although Zoho is not exclusive to higher education, users can activate the Educational Sector feature to create modules and fields that are specific to student data management. This comprehensive tool offers features to streamline student management, admissions processes, and communication within the academic community. With capabilities for enrollment tracking, communication management, and seamless collaboration among faculty, Zoho enhances efficiency for educational entities. However, consultants will need to create modules and fields for students, rather than having an inbuilt platform already. 

Key Features: 

• Project management, reporting and analytics, and Customizable layouts to suit specific needs.

Price: 

• $14 — $40 per month, billed annually (free trial available)
  

7. TargetX

TargetX offers a Student Recruitment CRM solution specifically designed for higher education institutions, focusing on optimizing student recruitment and enrollment processes. It excels in streamlining student recruitment processes, offering features like prospective student tracking, communication tools, integrations, modules for converting leads to enrollments, and analytics for data-driven decisions. TargetX’s automated and intuitive email marketing platform is a key benefit, however, it currently offers limited plans. 

Key Features:

• Admissions and application management, assessment tools, customizable reports, email marketing, live chat, real-time data, and workflow management for efficient student engagement and success.

Price:

• No information about pricing is available (no free trial offered).
  

8. EduCtrl

EduCtrl, a cloud-based Overseas Education Consultancy CRM, simplifies day-to-day operations by efficiently tracking leads, statuses, and staff assignments while enhancing student experiences. It streamlines follow-up processes, ensuring timely communication with prospects, and facilitates the creation and management of university applications tailored to student preferences. A plus of this CRM is the software’s user-friendly interface and messaging capabilities which contribute to an overall improved consultancy management experience. However, some users have reported that the software could improve on its ease of use. 

Key Features: 

• Self-Service Portal for students to upload certificates and documents.

Price:

• $5 — $6 per month, billed annually (no free trial available).

• Monthly plans are available.
  

9. Solid Performers

Solid Performers CRM streamlines Study Abroad and Education Consultant processes, effortlessly managing student applications, tracking progress, and nurturing client relationships. It provides account management, forecasting tools, document management, and activity tracking for education consultants. While Solid Performers offers a slew of features at a reasonable budget, some of its add-ons can be costly such as the setup and training add-on which is an added $249. 

Key Features

• Integration with all lead sources available without any manual intervention.  

Price 

• $15 — $30 per month, billed annually (free trial available)
  

10. Blackbaud

Blackbaud’s Student Enrollment Management and Admission System offers a comprehensive school admissions software solution that focuses on creating a robust first impression, enhancing the application process, and seamlessly integrating tuition billing. The system, designed to streamline contracts, is a testament to Blackbaud’s commitment to providing an efficient and user-friendly enrollment management experience for schools and colleges. However, users have reported wanting better emailing and event modules to not have to support extra software within this CRM. 

Key Features:

• Helps students move through the college application process more efficiently with automated checklists, online application references, and text and email reminders.

Price:

• Personalized pricing can be requested after filling out a form here. 
  

If you’d like to recommend a rigorous research program open to high schoolers, you may want to consider the Lumiere Research Scholar Program, a selective online high school program for students founded by researchers at Harvard and Oxford. Last year, we had over 4000 students apply for 500 spots in the program! You can find the application form here. You can also reach out to us at contact@lumiere.education to know more, or to have a chat about possible collaborations!

Also check out the Lumiere Research Inclusion Foundation, a non-profit research program for talented, low-income students. Last year, we had 150 students on full need-based financial aid!

Trisha Malhotra, an Ashoka University alumna, has 5 years of experience being a freelance writer and currently writes for Lumiere Education. She is passionate about music, reading, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, as well as a devoted cat parent.

Image Source: EduAgent logo