Educational Institutions – How CallFire Can Help
Stay on the Cutting Edge: Take Advantage of SMS Opportunities Now
Mobile advertising has revolutionized marketing, and it’s a medium that works even better for educational institutions because younger people have the highest mobile adoption rates. It is a much simpler, less intrusive way to contact hundreds of people and know that they will pay attention. With open rates averaging 98%, there is nothing else like it in terms of reach rate. Take advantage of this opportunity by integrating SMS into your strategy today.
Here are some suggestions for what you can do with SMS:
- Event reminders for reunions, big games, homecoming events, student-parent nights, PTA meetings, community service events, assemblies, graduations, national sorority and fraternity events, etc. Information in SMS messages can always be referenced to later, making it great for reminders.
- Event cancellations
- Emergency notifications in the case of school lockdowns or other unexpected events.
- Weather alerts and school closures. With an SMS, you don’t have to worry whether it’s an appropriate time to call or not.
- Truancy or absenteeism announcements, both to students and parents – whether to reduce truancy or to ensure child safety.
- Classroom reminders from teacher or professors about big projects and due dates.
- Important announcements of any sort.
Send a Voice Broadcast to Notify Everyone
Send your message out to all your students, parents, alumni, or faculty and staff. A voice broadcast can have an advantage over an SMS because it can use a recognizable voice (a principal or celebrity), and convey more than a short text. Just record a message and upload your phone list, schedule a time & date for your message to go out, and CallFire will place the calls for you at 50 calls-per-minute (increased speeds available by request).
- Event reminders for reunions, big games, homecoming events, student-parent nights, PTA meetings, community service events, assemblies, graduations, national sorority and fraternity events, etc.
- Event cancellations
- Emergency notifications in the case of school lockdowns or other unexpected events.
- Weather alerts and school closures.
- Truancy or absenteeism announcements, both to students and parents – whether to reduce truancy or to ensure child safety.
- Important announcements of any sort.
- Fund-raising solicitations (with an easy press-1-to-donate option)
- Supports phone surveys and polls through addition of IVR
Learn more about Voice Broadcast.
Create a Navigable Menu, Survey, or Auto Attendant with Hosted IVR
The CallFire IVR Designer allows you to create navigable, custom phone trees as simple or as advanced as you want. Just record your messages (or choose the text-to-speech option) and use our drag-and-drop interface to build your IVR today.
- Emergency menus: for example, in the case of an earthquake or lockdown, put all available information in an IVR so that all parents calling in can all have access to it even if no one is available to answer calls.
- Navigable donation solicitations: for example, "Press 1 to hear about how we allocate funds, press 2 to be transferred and donate now."
- Comprehensive telephone surveys and polls.
- Complex auto attendants to route inbound calls to relevant information or faculty.
Learn more about Hosted IVR.
Make Your and Callers’ Jobs Easier with Cloud Call Center
Do you need to directly contact thousand of people, whether parents, alumni, or prospective students? CallFire allows volunteers or agents to phone bank 20-30% more efficiently than by hand dialing.
- Contact prospective students who have expressed interest in your school.
- Streamline alumni outreach and fund-raising efforts.
- Allow students and volunteers to work from home while monitoring their progress.
- Organize outcomes and notes for contacted people.
- Stop wasting time on answering machines by leaving pre-recorded messages (with your voice).
Learn more about Cloud Call Center.
Need assistance? Our agents understand educational institutions and can help you customize features for your project. Call now to speak with a CallFire consultant.
866-631-8573
Download the White Paper:
“Voice Broadcast Messages Battle Truancy in Boston and NYC”
Schools all over the country are trying new tactics to fight absenteeism. B.M.C. Durfee High School in Massachusetts sent out recorded voice broadcasts from its principal. And "WakeUp! NYC" is a New York initiative that uses celebrity voices to do the same thing. Read more on our blog.
“Extra Credit: How Educational Institutions Can Get Ahead With CallFire”
CallFire worked with the UCI Alumni Association to send out 42,000 messages about homecoming weekend. It is doing the same with their business school for a reunion. See more examples of how educational institutions can use CallFire on our blog.
A Video from Us: Remote Control
One of our support specialists talks about how you can create a voice broadcast remotely from your phone. For example, a principal alerting students and their families about a snow day finds this approach much easier. Watch the video to learn more.
Interesting Links
“Salem-Keizer Lets Parents Know about Schools Being Shut Down Through Auto Dialer System” - A TMCNet article about how one school used an auto dialer to efficiently reach out to the student and parent community with important information regarding recent school closures.
“Portland Schools Use Auto Dialers to Contact Families” - Another example of a school using auto dialers in the case of absences; however, for elementary schools, this is a security issue, not a truancy issue. Help keep your neighborhood safe by doing the same.
