CRM provides compelling answers to the challenges facing higher education.

1. Decision Matrix: Selecting a CRM vendor in
higher education
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
User Sentiment Radar Market Impact Radar
Product quality
10
Company size
10
8
Client engagement Customer support
CRM installed base 8 Higher education revenue
6
6
4
4
2
2
0 Solution addressable installed
Financial stability Service capabilities 0 Revenue growth
base
Recognition
New Customers
Service levels Vertical specialization
Geographic reach
Portfolio depth Technology Radar
Interoperability & integration
10
Configurability 8 Offering maturity
6
4
Workflows & management tools Offering breadth & depth
2
0
End-user interface Strategy & execution
Analytics & reporting functionality Offering scalability
Multi-channel capabilities
RightNow Technologies Average across vendors Maximum category score
Source: Datamonitor DATAMONITOR
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

2. Decision Matrix: Selecting a CRM vendor in
higher education
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.
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