Four signs it’s time to break up with your student CRM

Your relationship with your student CRM vendor—especially if you’ve had the system in place for years—can feel both personal and entrenched. But sometimes it’s hard to tell if a technology is actually good, or if it’s just familiar. Could it be time to reassess the relationship?

To learn how higher ed leaders approach that question, I spoke with enrollment and student success leaders from a variety of institution types—including small community colleges, large public schools, and selective universities—about their decision to replace an existing student CRM with EAB’s Navigate360. Use cases for the prior technology varied widely at the schools I spoke with, from recruitment marketing to appointment scheduling to early alerts. But no matter the school, and no matter the use case, some common trends emerged. 

Here are four red flags campus leaders wish they’d recognized sooner, the costs of ignoring them, and the qualities they sought in a better CRM partner.

Painful implementation: An early sign you may need a new student CRM

Student CRM implementation issues are one of the earliest red flags higher ed leaders encounter, especially when using CRMs originally built for corporate or marketing teams rather than for higher education workflows.

Tech implementation is intimidating for many reasons: the cost, the time, the burden on staff. But too many vendors make it harder than it has to be. One campus leader told me how their prior CRM’s implementation didn’t go well: “They didn’t have good training. They didn’t get advisor buy-in. Each of the features had to be completely built and tested, and then the tech didn’t work. There was frustration.”

For institutions that tried to adapt out-of-industry CRMs, the challenges multiplied. A student success leader from a midsize public HBCU recalled: “Implementation was quite a heavy lift because they were using a product that was intended for industry and moving it into the education arena. The transition was difficult.”

The vendor used the wrong terminology, failed to understand users’ needs, and, ultimately, lacked perspective on who exactly the institution serves: students. The school was forced to do much of the work themselves, from creating alert categories to developing a training curriculum. Ultimately, campus adoption failed to get off the ground.

What to look for instead: A realistic implementation timeline that accounts for the capacity of your IT team; proven experience with all needed integrations and relevant campus systems; robust change management and promotion support alongside playbooks to ensure a strong start

Poor vendor support: Switch your student CRM with trusted experts dedicated to your success

When your team is constantly dealing with student CRM vendor support issues, it’s often a sign you’re using a platform not truly built for higher ed, especially general-purpose CRMs that rely on institutions to troubleshoot on their own.

A successful CRM is more than software; it’s an ongoing partnership. Without expert support, the burden of troubleshooting, change management, and training often falls entirely on you.

One CIO compared their old vendor to being handed “a box full of parts with no instructions.” Another community college leader described their vendor relationship bluntly: “They pretty much just told us, ‘Hey, we’re going to hand this tech off to your IT staff and they will need to figure out how to fix and work this system.’”

What to look for instead: Dedicated, go-to people who support you at every stage of your partnership, even years down the line; responsive, reliable tech support staff who take the burden off you and your IT team

For many of these leaders, EAB’s training and post-implementation support was a major reason they chose to switch to Navigate360. That partnership has been especially valuable during complex implementations, such as Nursing programs where intricate enrollment workflows required a more tailored approach. In scenarios like these, EAB provides hands-on guidance to ensure the CRM meets each program’s nuanced needs and goals.

Another campus leader shared how their strong, transparent relationship with their EAB team has played out from implementation to ongoing utilization: “With our EAB Launch Consultant, we met weekly. He was always able to answer questions that we had. He was honest about what they could or couldn’t do. He was honest about what was our responsibility. He and our Strategic Leader always look for ways to say yes.”

Hidden costs and add-on fees: It shouldn’t cost extra just to make your CRM usable

Hidden CRM costs in higher ed, especially those tied to consulting hours or custom builds, are a red flag that your current platform may not be financially sustainable in the long term.

Many institutions are lured by a low upfront price only to discover later that every feature, integration, consultation, or training session comes with an added fee. 

One university leader came into her role to find that few advisors actually used their existing CRM, despite the institution paying a significant amount of money for it: “I had more capability with Google spreadsheets and Calendly in my last role than our advisors had with Salesforce! Salesforce sold a concept that hadn’t been constructed… They were charging a $24,000 add-on to sync calendars, and they are heavy on the consulting fees.”

If you need anything more than the most basic functionality—and most institutions do—it’s better to have assurances that the fees won’t start to pile on when you’re deep into implementation or already rolling out the tech. 

What to look for instead: A solution that doesn’t charge an implementation fee, or a fee-per-user, or a fee-per-contact; no additional cost for platform customizations or consultative support

One campus leader learned this lesson the hard way: “I asked IT why we had 21 instances of Salesforce. And they said, ‘You shouldn’t question them like that. They’re a very good friend of ours.’ If that’s how you define a friend, I hate to see how you define an enemy… EAB’s honest approach on what they offer and deliver is critical. Salesforce sold us a concept that didn’t deliver.”

Low adoption and difficult user experience: A sign you need a more intuitive student CRM

If you’re facing persistent student CRM adoption challenges or usability problems among advisors or faculty, it’s a sign the system wasn’t built for higher ed workflows. As student support grows more complex, the ability to engage faculty and staff in flagging students early will only become more critical—and your CRM needs to support that.

The most advanced system is useless if staff don’t use it. But many leaders told me their previous CRMs were so complex that only one or two “super users” ever learned them. When those people left, adoption collapsed. Make sure you understand your team’s needs and choose a vendor best suited to meet them.

As one advising leader said: “Some of our faculty advisors stopped using Salesforce because it just wasn’t user friendly. There wasn’t anyone who was satisfied with it, not one person. One of the challenges was that leadership made the decision to implement the system for advisors without involving them in the process.”

The institution’s platform lacked training resources, and by the end of their contract even the super users only had a surface knowledge of the system. As she said, “It’s hard to train others on something we don’t really understand.”When asked about the biggest differentiator she’s seen after switching from Salesforce to Navigate360, she quickly replied: “Ease of use. I demoed Navigate360 for advising leadership with no training and was still able to move around easily—find a student, review course history, and access the analytics dashboard. It works well for people with all levels of technology skills, so even those who aren’t excited about tech still find it incredibly useful.”

You need a tool that delivers robust, customizable functionality and deep data analysis capabilities alongside a seamless, user-friendly UI. Without all of that, you simply won’t see the adoption needed to make an impact.

What to look for instead: One seamless, straightforward, user-friendly experience across all functionalities and offices; gratis on-demand training materials and field-tested best practices; virtual and in-person opportunities to connect with and learn from peers; access to research and strategy on the process improvements needed to make lasting change.

How Navigate360 compares to other student CRMs

If one of those four red flags feels familiar—painful implementation, poor support, hidden fees, or low adoption—your institution may already be outgrowing its current CRM, making now the right time to consider a platform purpose-built for higher education. 

When the signs point to needing a new student CRM

Every good relationship is built on trust. If you can’t trust your vendor—to show up when you need them, charge what they say they’re going to charge, and address problems in a timely and effective manner—how can you expect them to adequately serve you and your students?

For the campus leaders I spoke with, finding a student CRM partner that they could trust from day one was essential. As one VP of Student Success said: “EAB is attuned to our needs as an individual institution. There’s a close, collegial connection between their team and ours, and they echo our language around partnership and doing things differently. That alignment has helped shift our culture and build trust—even before the contract was signed.”

At the end of the day, this isn’t just about technology. It’s about whether your CRM enables your institution to meet your goals and help your students thrive. 

Ariel Aisen

Associate Director, Product Marketing

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