The Role of Multi-Channel Communication in Student Success

More than one in three students considered stopping out in 2024, with 64% indicating mental health concerns as the primary reason, according to the Gallup-Lumina State of Higher Education Report.

To keep struggling students enrolled and on track with their academic goals, higher education institutions are turning to multi-channel communication strategies that facilitate timely, personalized support. 

The good news is that this approach doesn’t have to mean more administrative work for campus staff. The right Conversation Intelligence Platform (CIP) doesn’t just enable multi-channel communication—it makes every message smarter. 

Let’s look at what multi-channel communication is, its role in driving better student success outcomes, and how analyzing engagement trends and student sentiment helps student success advisors proactively identify and support at-risk students before they disengage.

What is Multi-Channel Communication and Why Is It Essential for Student Success?

Multi-channel communication allows universities and colleges to quickly reach both prospective and enrolled students on various channels, including email, AI chatbot, live chat, text messaging, and social media. 

Unlike one-size-fits-all outreach, a multi-channel approach delivers a consistent, personalized experience, allowing higher education institutions to offer relevant support on their preferred channels at the right time and build trust. 

Traditional CRMs were built for data storage, not engagement. This leads to siloed communication and fragmented outreach. As a result, student success teams end up competing for students’ attention alongside other departments on a single channel, typically email, causing messages to be overlooked or lost in an overflowing inbox.

This can leave at-risk students feeling ignored and unaware of the support services and resources they can access, potentially leading them to leave their program before completing their studies. 

Mongoose solves this by delivering an AI-powered, two-way messaging experience, allowing institutions to move beyond static emails and generic bulk texts.

“Mongoose has been a game-changer for us. It’s flexible, intuitive, and incredibly effective at helping us connect with students and counselors. We’re excited to continue building on its capabilities to support our growth.”

Alex Galbreath, Director of Admissions at OSU-Cascades

How Conversation Intelligence Enhances Multi-Channel Communication in Student Success

Here are five practical ways higher education institutions can use Mongoose’s Conversation Intelligence Platform to improve student support.

1. Maintain Consistency Across Multiple Touchpoints 

A fragmented communication strategy can be challenging to maintain over time, resulting in missed opportunities to connect with students seeking support and information gaps that may leave them feeling frustrated and undervalued. 

Mongoose’s Conversation Hub centralizes communication across Text, WhatsApp, and Chat, ensuring no student falls through the cracks. Meanwhile, its Intelligence Hub delivers real-time insights, helping student success teams identify disengaged students and personalize their outreach at scale. 

The platform also integrates seamlessly with a wide range of CRMs like Slate and Salesforce, so your team gets a comprehensive view of students’ interests and progress in one place.

2. Personalize Messaging for Impactful Student Interactions

There’s not one student journey. Each student has unique needs, challenges, and goals, requiring personalized support throughout their academic experience. However, tailoring messages manually can be time-consuming and shift focus away from managing critical caseloads. 

Mongoose helps student success teams act on key intervention moments—sending proactive nudges for financial aid deadlines, wellness check-ins, and advisor meetings. By combining AI-driven segmentation with real-time chat capabilities, Mongoose ensures students receive the right support at the right time.

For example, for first-year students, student success counselors might focus their messages on encouraging participation in on-campus events, clubs, or organizations that help foster a sense of belonging.

“[Mongoose’s] AI capabilities help us streamline our communication while keeping it personal.”

Brandon Wente, Associate Director of Admissions at Concordia College

3. Deliver Proactive, Relevant Support Throughout the Academic Journey

According to the 2023-2024 Hope Center Student Basic Needs Survey, almost 60% of students faced food or housing insecurity, the number rising to 73% when considering access to mental health care, childcare, transportation, and technology. Even more worrying, less than 50% of respondents relied on campus services or resources to address these challenges.

Mongoose can help your institution reduce response times and free up student success teams to focus on what’s important — proactively guiding students through key academic milestones and helping them overcome barriers to graduation. Counselors can collect student information through AI-powered Chat and follow up via Text with targeted campaigns, check-in nudges, and reminders to keep at-risk students on track.

“Mongoose has been a fantastic tool for engagement and has allowed us to build stronger connections with our students.”

Dustie Hamilton, Director of Enrollment Systems at McLennan Community College

4. Improve Resource Accessibility and Student Satisfaction Across Campus

Having a multi-channel approach ensures that all your students feel heard and can easily access critical resources and support services, regardless of the channel they choose to reach out on.

Mongoose allows your institution to offer students a self-service option directly on your website through AI chatbot tools, along with real-time support from campus staff via Mongoose Chat. Using personalized text messages, student success counselors can have real-time, two-way conversations and ensure students get the help they need, when they need it. 

Reaching international students is just as easy thanks to Mongoose WhatsApp. Campus staff can use pre-approved multilingual templates to provide mental health support, tutoring services, or career guidance to global learners.

At OSU Cascades, Mongoose played a pivotal role in reducing summer melt by improving contact rates with admitted students. This ensured students completed critical next steps, such as orientation registration, to secure their spots for the upcoming term.

5. Optimize Outreach Strategies Using Real-Time Analytics

Research shows only 40% of student success leaders claim that their institution can efficiently analyze student success data, which limits their ability to assess emerging student needs and optimize support strategies. This can leave struggling students, especially those from historically underserved groups, in a vulnerable position and lead to higher attrition rates.

Mongoose’s real-time performance analytics allow your institutions to effortlessly track response rates and student engagement levels. Equipped with these valuable data-driven insights, your student success staff can refine their communication strategies, improving the quality of their support services and ultimately achieving better student outcomes.

“We get all kinds of responses, from questions about summer camp to bookstore inquiries, which shows the trust and connection we’ve built.”

Sarah Stoklosa, Director of Annual Giving and Stewardship, St. Joseph’s Collegiate

Master Multi-Channel Student Engagement with Mongoose

The 2025 Trends in Higher Education Report from Hanover Research shows that, to meet learners’ changing expectations and increase graduation rates, higher education institutions in the US are diversifying their student support services and creating a more connected, student-focused system covering academic, career, financial, and wellness aspects. 

Student success communication tools like Mongoose combine multi-channel messaging with data-driven insights, enabling student success teams to: 

• Facilitate access to support resources and increase awareness.
• Check in with students during high-stress periods.
• Provide targeted, timely support to students at risk of dropping out.

Institutions using Mongoose have seen 98% student retention among those who opt into messaging and 6x higher engagement rates than traditional email outreach.

Ready to level up your student success strategy? Book a demo today to see Mongoose in action.

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