Jenzabar Higher-Ed CRM Gets Enhancements

Jenzabar announced enhancements this week to the CRM portion of its Total Campus Management (TCM) suite targeted at the high-education market. The enhancements particularly have to do with giving faculty and students better functionality for advisement, course selection, degree and course requirements, financial aid, grades and similar processes having to do with the logistics of higher ed.

When Jenzabar uses the acronym "CRM" they mean it to refer to Constituent Relationship Management, rather than "Customer," as commonly used in the business world. Having worked in the education field, I understand that the use of the word "customer" can go contrary to sensibilities and organizational models. And in a college or university, the crucial relationships go far beyond that with the customer, that is, the student. You need to consider parents, faculty and staff, alumni, donors, community, referring schools and institutions, regulators, accreditation agencies and others, so "constituent" is an entirely appropriate term.

Even when you just consider just the primary customer, the student, I have thought for a long time that CRM has many exciting applications in higher education. Think about how long the customer relationship might be between an institution and a student. Consider this possible progression of the relationship:

1. Age 16 -- A high school student learns about the college from a high-school counselor and receives a brochure. Touch-point: marketing.

2. Age 17 -- Time to apply. The applicant fills out an online admissions form or fills out a hard copy and sends it in. Touch-point: admissions.

3. Age 17 -- Campus visit to learn about the school and experience the atmosphere. Touch-point: admissions, student services, faculty, others.

4. Age 18 -- Acceptance and orientation. Touch-points: student services, registrar, financial aid, academics.

5. Ages 18-22 -- Student years. Touch-points: Faculty, student services, registrar, financial aid, housing, food service, finance and accounting, others.

6. Age 22 and beyond -- Even after graduation, the student is likely to maintain a relationship with the school based on loyalty, relationships with faculty, and benefits offered to alumni. Touch-points: alumni services, faculty, institutional advancement.

7. Death: Estate planning can result in a bequest to a beloved institution that has maintained a strong relationship with a former student over the years. Touch-points: alumni services, institutional advancement.

Jenzabar's offerings extend far beyond its CRM modules, encompassing administrative and financial modules, ERP, data marts and a learning management system. Everything is delivered through a web-based portal call Jenzabar's Internet Campus Solution (JICS). This kind of unified, integrated suite is a strong selling point, obviating the need to 'manage multiple connections to various constituencies' through "deployment of dissimilar and disconnected portals," says Jenzabar. JICS is built on the Microsoft .NET platform.

Good clear screen shots are hard to come by on the Jenzabar web site, a common fault in the world of CRM marketing (and in software marketing generally for that matter). However, I did find a good example in this screen shot of a faculty access page:

Jenzabar is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. Its solutions are operating in 700 campuses globally.

AB -- 3/23/06