Founded in 1967, Lincoln Land Community College (LLCC) is recognized for its high-quality educational opportunities and robust support networks. The college offers 100 areas of study, providing students with a wide range of avenues to explore. This dynamic approach to learning is essential, as LLCC is the largest community college district in Illinois in terms of land mass and serves more than 12,000 individuals each year.
Students at LLCC have multiple options when choosing their class format. While face-to-face learning is a popular choice, they can also take a hybrid or online approach. In fact, LLCC was a leader in online learning in the region, introducing online classes as early as 1997.
The college’s stated mission is to transform lives and strengthen our communities through learning. To accomplish this goal, leaders place a high priority on personalized student experiences. The faculty-to-student ratio is 1:17, and LLCC offers numerous services to support students throughout their learning journeys.
Resources include:
- Academic support
- Tutoring
- Accessibility services
- Career center
- PATH program
- Student care coordinator
But with so many individual programs and departments, it became increasingly harder for the school’s employees to stay on the same page. Many employees still relied on phone calls and emails to connect with students, even though those communication channels had fallen out of favor. Communications became muddled, and the student experience inevitably suffered as a result.
Ed Brown, IT Trainer and Technical Writer at LLCC, was part of the team tasked with finding a solution to these issues. When he found a higher education-focused texting platform, he immediately saw the potential.
“Texting and the ‘community’ aspect of our mission seemed to go pretty strongly together,” recalls Brown. “Our students really get into that type of communication media.”
With the new SMS system up and running, it seemed like LLCC’s communication problems would be left in the rear-view mirror.
The Challenge
Due to the structure and operations of community colleges, they are typically less centralized than other organizations. And with so many disparate processes and competing priorities, the new SMS solution wasn’t providing the unified experience that had originally been envisioned.
For example, Brown and his team soon realized that their texting platform wasn’t compatible with Salesforce. While some of LLCC’s teams had never even heard of Salesforce, it was an essential tool for the more goal-driven teams.
“The school has many departments, and there’s kind of a mix in that area,” says Brown. “But our recruiting group needed Salesforce.”
This lack of alignment between teams compounded the issues with student engagement. While the recruiters worked out of a CRM, the school’s help desk had its own techniques for managing the texts going out to students. Similarly, the library would manually send out quick messages to remind students about overdue books or late fees.
So Brown went back to the drawing board.
The Solution
When the college found TrueDialog, it became clear to Brown and his team that it was the platform that could finally unify the various departments. The setup process was surprisingly easy, which was important because there were numerous teams to enroll now that the school had discontinued use of the previous texting platform.
“We knew that it was fairly easy to get people on board,” recalls Brown. “And so that happened as a turn-off, turn-on. It was very straightforward. We had it up and running, with our people comfortably texting, within a week.
One of the big advantages that Brown and his team discovered was that, unlike the school’s previous SMS platform, TrueDialog could be synced to the work phones in use throughout the campus. This enabled employees to text from their direct phones, rather than just from a randomized telephone number.
Even with the streamlined integration process and widespread enthusiasm from school employees, some inevitable kinks remained to be worked out. For example, LLCC’s success advisors sent a message out to hundreds of students that said, “Hi, I’m your success advisor. I can help you prepare for your courses.”
The team was initially proud of the message’s brevity, mindful of the importance of keeping SMS messages short and sweet. But within just a minute or two, they were receiving confused responses from students. Each text conveyed the same general message: “Who is this?” The team realized that it was inadequate to simply introduce themselves as “success advisors,” because that term could be used by any number of businesses or organizations.
Lesson learned: When reaching out to a student, always identify yourself in relation to your college.
Despite these occasional hiccups, LLCC employees have embraced the new texting solution. By focusing on impactful experiences and how each message will be received on students’ phones, they’re continually optimizing their outreach.
One key TrueDialog feature that has proved indispensable is the option for both shared accounts and primary accounts. The private account setup is essential for success advisors and other employees who need to engage in private exchanges with students. TrueDialog’s secure design ensures that these messages are always discreet and compliant.
Conversely, there are many instances when a student needs to interact with multiple employees. These accounts are shared so that the right people can seamlessly add to the thread and deliver the best experience for the student.
The most popular shared thread at the school might be the help desk. Historically, the school’s help desk had only been accessible via traditional channels, such as phone calls and email. But the team felt that text messaging would be a welcome addition.
“We hadn’t even mentioned yet to anybody that the help desk could be texted,” says Brown. “And that day that we set it up, there was already a student who texted us to that line. That was jaw-dropping. Wow. This is how much they use texts.”
The Results
The integration of TrueDialog at LLCC has earned rave reviews from staff and students alike. The interface is easy for internal teams to use, while the messages being sent out align perfectly with student communication preferences.
Among the most frequently cited benefits is access to the right people at the right time. For example, students at other colleges often struggle to get access to their success advisors. This backlog of communication can be particularly detrimental to vulnerable students who lack access to other support systems.
“Our students can reach out to success advisors in a natural and quick way,” explains Brown. “They’re getting appointments via text messages, and the whole process has been streamlined.”
Leaders at LLCC are pleased to note that even their student workers are using TrueDialog, which hadn’t been the case with the previous texting platform. And as employees leave the college for other opportunities and new hires take their place, the transition has proven to be easier than expected. As employees are onboarded, they simply review their predecessors’ text threads and can quickly jump into the conversation where needed.
This increased consistency is significantly improving the student experience at LLCC, as there are no gaps in communication when employees change roles or leave the college. As far as the students are concerned, they’re getting continual access to the information they need, when they need it.
Ultimately, the enhanced access is proving indispensable to the college’s ability to deliver on its mission of transforming lives and strengthening communities through learning.
