When the staff at your college or university sends a text, it’s only the beginning of the communication. Hours go into monitoring an inbox, investigating problems, responding to students on time, and following up when necessary.
With the Auto Reply texting feature in Cadence, you reduce the workload of your staff and better support students. Auto Reply is a simple concept, but an incredible texting feature. It might not change the world, but it does make a work day easier.
How does Auto Reply work?
Cadence users simply go to their inbox to update their settings. When doing so, they input a keyword and write an Auto Reply that will be automatically sent back to whomever texts back that matching keyword.
Boost Admissions efforts with Auto Reply
Auto Reply makes it easier to respond immediately to prospective students, then build on that engagement opportunity. For example, your school could post a note on the campus tours section of your website that says:
In this example, your Admission staff would input “EAGLE” as a keyword. Any text that was sent to the number using the keyword would receive an immediate confirmation message, set up by your team. This Auto Reply could be:
There’s no limit to the number of keywords you can input. Plus, students who responded with “EAGLE” could then be tagged and placed into a group to receive future texts about events. Tags allow you to create a Segment, or list of contacts, then track who showed interest in a specific topic.
Organize your alumni
For your next alumni networking event, your Advancement team could set up a social post with an Auto Reply campaign.
The Auto Reply could help your staff sort interested alumni into career or special interest groups:
This would allow your Advancement team to group new contacts for future stewardship or your next fundraiser.
Guide Community College students
Community College students are often post-traditional and focused on achieving career goals in the near future. A potential use for the Auto Reply texting feature in Cadence for a Community College could be to create a banner on your website to promote a text line:
Auto Reply helps your school organize the contact information of potential students. Any incoming text in Cadence constitutes an opt-in, so this is a great way to generate more leads. The Auto Reply would prompt a student to give more information on the field they’re interested in to help keep the conversation going.
This conversation puts your staff in communication with students who are eager to receive information, allowing your staff to focus their efforts where it will make the most impact.
Auto Reply helps students as well as staff
The needs of students, parents, and alumni are met more efficiently with Auto Reply. Constituents get an immediate response when they express interest in a school, register for updates, or ask specific questions.
With tools built in Cadence for follow-up, your school can be ready to serve their needs in a more personalized fashion. That is a win-win situation.