Let us introduce you to two outstanding business owners, John and Mary. John owns a local bakery, and Mary, who has a cosmetology vocational school.
John owned a local bakery and wanted to generate additional revenue; he decided to start teaching courses on how to make delicious desserts. Surprisingly, there was more interest than he expected; and now he has dozens of students taking different classes throughout the week. For each one of these students, he needs to keep track of which class they were taking. Process their payments, and ensure that he orders enough supplies.
Mary has decided to open her cosmetology vocational school. She envisions her school offering multiple classes and hopefully enrolling many students. For her students, she’ll need to track all transactions. This includes payments, Attendance, grades, and course selections while also giving out a certificate upon completion.
For both John and Mary, manually tracking all these things for each student would become a hassle. Before long, they’d be spending more time on these tasks than running their business and teaching. What John and Mary both need is a “Student Relationship Management” software.
What is Student Relationship Management Software?
Student Relationship Management software, or an SRM, is a tool that can help you manage your courses and students. An SRM is similar to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, which is used by businesses to track customers. According to CRM.org, “A CRM gathers customer interactions across all channels in one place. Managing centralized data helps businesses improve customer experience, satisfaction, retention, and service.”
CRMs have become invaluable tools throughout the business world. It allows each business to handle simple customer-related tasks quickly and efficiently. In fact, according to Capterra, 65 percent of companies adopt a CRM within their first five years of business.
SRM tools are very similar to CRMs; they just cater to a slightly different audience. In addition to managing your customers and sales; SRM lets you manage and track your students’ full life cycle from day one.
Who Can Benefit from an SRM?
Three main groups can benefit from SRMs. The first is schools. Whether you’re conducting courses online or in-person; having one tool you can use to manage all your students is very beneficial. An SRM will allow course providers and teachers to spend more time teaching and improving the course, rather than on administrative tasks.
The next group an SRM can help are businesses. If your business offers any type of course or training, you’ll want a centralized spot to manage your class. For example, an auto repair shop may also provide classes to learn how to become a mechanic. Adding classes or training to your business is a great way to generate additional revenue; but only if you can manage them effectively.
Finally, SRM tools help students. Whether that student is taking a class through a school or a traditional business, they’ll want things to run smoothly. They want their tuition payments to get processed on time. Find out their grades quickly, and to have their attendance recorded correctly. Using an SRM will be beneficial to both schools and businesses and can provide a better experience to their students.
Benefits of Using an SRM
There are quite a few things businesses and schools will be able to do when implementing an SRM. They are:
- Automate Registration – One of the most time-consuming parts of offering a course is processing the registration for each student. If you’re offering online or on-site classes with thousands of students, this could quickly take up too much time. With an SRM, you can automate most of the registration process. This makes it’s quicker and easier for both you and the students.
- Process Payments – Another great feature of SRM tools is the ability to process payments. Unless you’re offering your course for free; you’ll want a quick and reliable way for your students to make their payments. Like registration, you don’t have the time to process each payment on your own. A good SRM will manage this for you, automatically billing your students on time and processing their payment.
- Track Student Information – With an SRM tool, you can track everything you need about your students. For example, you can track how often they attend class. What courses they have previously taken, their grades, their contact information, and much more. Having all this information in one place is more convenient. You can even gain some great insights into your school.
- Improve Collaboration – In many cases, you won’t be the only one administering and teaching the courses. You may have several, if not many, other teachers and professionals involved in the process. With a good SRM tool, you can seamlessly include everyone. Coordinating things like course schedules and class assignments become a lot easier; when you have one centralized tool to manage it.
- Reduce Costs – Finally, there are costs. Using an SRM tool to manage your courses, schools, and businesses alike can significantly cut back on their costs; This largely comes from going paperless, as everything can be done online. Besides, you and your employees won’t have to spend as much time performing administrative tasks; allowing you to work fewer hours, thereby saving even more money.
Get Started with Steams Online
To receive all the benefits listed above, contact Steams Online today. Our Student Relationship Management software is designed to make things as easy as possible for schools or a traditional business.
Our Student Relationship Management tool is cloud-based. This makes it even easier to manage your courses from wherever you are and across multiple devices. Some other benefits of Steams Online’s Student Relationship Management tool include:
- SMS Text messaging & Email Marketing
- Leads Generation
- Online Registration & Course Booking
- Secure online payment processing
- Student progress reports
- Easy-to-use dashboard
- A smart calendar to track upcoming events
- And a notification system for when programs are up for renewal and much more!
SRM software is an invaluable tool for any school or business that provides courses. It makes life easier for your team, cuts back on costs, and provides you with advanced analytics to help you improve your business. For more information on how you can get started with an SRM, contact us at any time.