Lincoln Land’s Playbook: SMS Strategies That Work for Every Department

Introduction

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.

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.

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.

The Challenge

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 its potential to support the “community” aspect of the school’s mission.

But the new SMS solution failed to provide 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, which was an essential tool for the recruiting team.

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 Brown and his team first connected with TrueDialog, it became clear that it was the platform that could finally unify the various departments. A big advantage 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.

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. Brown says it has been “jaw-dropping” to see how eager students were to access the help desk by text once that feature was introduced.

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 when employees change roles or leave the college, the transition is seamless for their replacements. During onboarding, new employees can quickly review their predecessors’ text threads and jump into the conversation where needed.

This increased consistency is significantly improving the student experience at LLCC, as there are no gaps in communication. And the enhanced access to staff is proving indispensable to the college’s ability to deliver on its mission of transforming lives and strengthening communities through learning.

“We knew that it was fairly easy to get people on board. It was very straightforward. We had it up and running, with our people comfortably texting, within a week.”

– Ed Bown, IT Trainer and Technical Writer at LLCC