How Conversation Intelligence Prevents ‘Ghosting’ in Higher Ed Communication

For many enrollment and admissions teams at colleges across the US, getting prospective students to commit—that is, to submit completed, timely applications that lead to admissions offers and enrollment—is a persistent challenge; too many potential applicants are content to remain “just friends.”

This can be particularly confounding when admissions teams pull out all the stops to facilitate outreach, recruitment, and ultimately admission to qualified geographically and socially diverse applicants.

Building relationships with high schools, targeted outreach programs, glossy mailers, and persistent email communications with prospectives all prove insufficient in the face of a slew of late or incomplete applications, or a disappointing lack of applicants from outside of the immediate geographic vicinity. 

With institutional pressure on admissions teams to improve these numbers, preventing higher ed ghosting has become an imperative. Yet, many admissions and enrollment personnel remain mired in frustration and confusion about why their efforts to engage prospective students are failing—or what they can even do about it.

A Breakdown in Communication

Despite increased emphasis on impactful recruitment strategies and broader utilization of technological tools within admissions cycles, higher ed “ghosting” remains an intractable problem for many colleges and universities; recent data shows that some 25% of applications are never completed. 

And with recent changes to federal data reportage stipulating that incomplete applications can no longer be added to the tally of a university’s total applicants, statistics on admission and enrollment will consequently change in ways that may be unfavorable to many universities’ profiles.

Yet, in spite of the marketplace prevalence of both AI-driven tools and messaging apps, much of higher education communication still relies on dated outreach methods, such as telephone calls (which many recipients find downright alienating). Universities struggle to leverage the multi-channel, digital communication approaches favored by today’s students, alums, and donors, particularly younger ones. 

While traditional CRMs can help close some of these gaps by providing automated messaging services that interact with digital platforms, they often don’t go far enough to create true engagement.

Traditional CRM messaging lacks a responsive, empathetic tone, nor does it deliver the type of meaningful, two-way communication needed to approach reluctant applicants or struggling students; most CRMs simply lack the tools to build relationships with these individuals.

“Mongoose offered the personalized, one-on-one interface we needed. The integration with Slate made it easy to create segments and send texts, and features like smart messages saved us valuable time while keeping communication personal.“

Alex Galbreath, Director of Admissions, Oregon State University – Cascades​

And, CRMs are largely unable to provide analytics and actionable intelligence underscoring the “why” of communication—that is, what drivers and patterns exist behind these interactions—thus holding communication efforts back from reaching their optimal impact.

The Power of Conversation Intelligence

Higher ed enrollment and admission personnel are in need of a solution that not only messages prospective and current students, but actively communicates with them. A Conversation Intelligence Platform like Mongoose delivers proactive, relevant, empathetic communication at scale; it also analyzes emotional drivers and conversational patterns, yielding actionable data insights to optimize outreach. 

A robust Conversation Intelligence Platform can be leveraged in a number of ways in order to recruit and retain students, support meaningful alumni outreach, and keep everyone on a path to success:

Director of Enrollment Marketing

Higher ed marketing professionals have traditionally faced a lot of guesswork as far as which strategies move the needle on recruitment and enrollment. What campaigns raise visibility in targeted regions? What actions increase direct engagement in the form of inquiries and applications?

Personalized engagement tools like Mongoose facilitate flexible, targeted communications, customized by student interests and behaviors, ensuring that colleges and universities show up on the right applicants’ radar, again and again.

“Mongoose’s chatbot has enabled MCC to automate 80% of routine inquiries, allowing staff to focus on more complex student needs.”

Dustie Hamilton, Director of Enrollment Systems​ at McLennan Community College

Director of Admissions

Personalized, automated communication strategies can streamline the admissions funnel, leading far more quality applicants to engage with the admissions office, complete their applications, and ultimately gain admission to the institution. Easy two-way messaging enables admissions counselors to nurture prospective students from application to enrollment, offering reminders, answering questions, and resolving confusion—all leading to timely submission and acceptance.

“Mongoose played a pivotal role in reducing summer melt by improving contact rates with admitted students. By following up text messages with phone calls, OSU-Cascades increased its overall contact rate from 36% to 57%.”

Alex Galbreath, Director of Admissions​ at Oregon State University – Cascades

VP of Enrollment

Admitting students is only the first stage in the process; keeping them on a trajectory to successfully complete credits, graduate on time, and have a positive student experience in the process is the next frontier. Solutions like Mongoose’s Conversation Intelligence Platform enable counselors to automatically prompt struggling students, offering tutoring, guidance, and other resources.

Tools like Mongoose are particularly impactful in recruiting and supporting students from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds, improving retention and academic success.

An Evolution in Engagement

At Jacksonville State University, a 4-year regional public school in Florida, admissions and enrollment teams were encountering stagnant application and enrollment numbers. Rates of student response to emails were low, and phone calls were simply ineffective, according to Roxanne Stancil, Coordinator for Recruitment Communication & Technology. Seeking to meet students where they are, the team at JSU used Mongoose to initiate a targeted texting campaign, increasing communication with prospective students to nearly half a million total texts in the 2022 application cycle. 

Texting proved incredibly effective in defeating summer melt and resulted in a 30% enrollment increase from 2019 to 2022. “We broke records for enrollment in 2019, 2021, and 2022,” says Stancil. “In [pandemic year] 2020, we even came out better than most.” 

The team at JSU also found significant time savings by shifting from calling to texting, and began leveraging the Mongoose platform to message students who were in danger of being voided from classes due to missed payments. And, some uses were just fun: JSU asked students who had deposited what their favorite song was via text—then collected those responses and created and sent a Spotify playlist to their students.

Thinking Ahead

The reality facing higher ed today is that communication methods have evolved dramatically, even over the past decade. What worked in yesteryear is no longer effective for engaging and retaining interested applicants. 

For many schools, improving application and enrollment numbers is top of mind. AI-driven platforms can offer new, exciting capabilities for building and maintaining strong connections with applicants, current students, and alums.

“Mongoose’s simplicity and human element were what set it apart. It feels like you’re texting a friend, not just blasting promotional material.”

Brandon Wente, Associate Director of Admission​ at Concordia College

If you’re interested in finding out how Conversation Intelligence can support your institution—facilitating data-driven, human-centered communication that truly impacts and engages— book a demo today. See how Mongoose can change the game.

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