Decision Matrix: Selecting a CRM vendor in higher education

Decision Matrix: Selecting a CRM vendor in the higher education market DMTC2109 / Published 06/2007

© Datamonitor. This brief is a licensed product and is not to be photocopied Page 25

RightNow Technologies: CRM in Higher Education Radars

Founded in 1997 with its headquarters in Bozeman, Montana, RightNow Technologies is a publicly traded CRM solutions

provider. Even though RightNow Technologies only recently launched a higher education version of its CRM solution,

RightNow Higher Education, it has made significant inroads into the higher education market and developed a reputation

for providing quality products and excellent service to institutions. Low scores in terms of market impact should not distract

readers from RightNow Technologies’ enviable user sentiment scores amongst institutions end users. In fact, RightNow

Technologies had the highest score amongst all of the profiled vendors in four of the eight user sentiment categories,

including product quality, customer support, service capabilities and client engagement. One might suspect that offering,

as part of its standard subscription, regular “tune-ups” to ensure that institutions are realizing the full value of their

RightNow Technologies solution may be contributing to these high scores. Given higher education’s proclivity for

purchasing technology based on the recommendations of peer institutions, RightNow Technologies’ strong reputation

amongst institutional end users will likely fuel greater market impact in the future.

Figure 10: The RightNow Technologies CRM in Higher Education Radars

Technology Radar

0

2

4

6

8

10Interoperability & integration

Offering maturity

Offering breadth & depth

Strategy & execution

Offering scalability

Multi-channel capabilities

Analytics & reporting functionality

End-user interface

Workflows & management tools

Configurability

User Sentiment Radar

0

2

4

6

8

10Product quality

Customer support

Service capabilities

Vertical specialization

Portfolio depth

Service levels

Financial stability

Client engagement

Market Impact Radar

0

2

4

6

8

10Company size

Higher education revenue

Revenue growth

New Customers

Geographic reach

Recognition

Solution addressable installed base

CRM installed base

RightNow Technologies Average across vendors Maximum category score

Source: Datamonitor D A T A M O N I T O R

Decision Matrix: Selecting a CRM vendor in higher education

Decision Matrix: Selecting a CRM vendor in the higher education market DMTC2109 / Published 06/2007

© Datamonitor. This brief is a licensed product and is not to be photocopied Page 26

While a greater proportion of institutions are using the solution to support student services than recruitment and

advancement, RightNow supports the entire student lifecycle with considerable multi-channel and analytics capabilities.

Channels include web self-service, email, web forms, mail, telephony, in-person interactions, live chat, surveys and an

interactive knowledgebase. Using “drag and drop” functionality to create reports, the analytics tool offers even the most

novice end users the ability to segment or drill down into student data easily. This functionality extends, in some ways, to

RightNow’s automated workflow technology that enables institutions to assign specific objectives to campaigns and then

track performance against them.

A particularly compelling feature of RightNow Technologies’ CRM solution is the ability to embed other applications, such

as the SIS or document management system, within it using a “custom tab.” As a result, end users have a more unified

desktop experience and reduce the need to toggle back and forth between applications. It is important to note that with the

release of version 8, RightNow Technologies has addressed many of the shortcomings in its user interface, making the

solution more intuitive for the non-technical end user.

Recommendation: Shortlist

The combination of being exceptionally well regarded in the higher education market and having a robust solution makes

RightNow Technologies a vendor that institutions should put on their shortlist when considering the purchase of a CRM

application. As RightNow Technologies’ hosted option offers institutions the benefits of attractive pricing and rapid

deployment without undermining the ability to have a fully branded end-user experience that varies by school, program or

even department, institutions seeking to implement CRM in the most basic to even the most sophisticated ways will find

RightNow Technologies to be an attractive vendor.