Context: Capacity Constraints in a High-Risk Moment
Like many private institutions, Adelphi University is operating under real pressure: limited staffing, ongoing student support needs, and broader enrollment headwinds in private higher education. Support teams are stretched thin. Students are unsure where to go for help. When they do reach out, it is often to the wrong office, or their issue has become critical.
Calls went unanswered.
Confusion compounded.
Capacity was consumed by preventable problems.
Within Adelphi’s IT Customer Experience team, these patterns were becoming increasingly visible. As the group responsible for the University’s IT Help Desk, the team had a unique vantage point: they were often the place students turned when they didn’t know where else to go. That perspective prompted a broader question: could Adelphi address patterns of campus community questions more efficiently?
“The Help Desk often sees confusion and patterns before anyone else does,” said Kerry Nicollet, who heads Adelphi’s IT Customer Experience team as Executive Director of Strategic Engagement and Portfolio Management.
What Adelphi did next did not begin as a retention or enrollment initiative.
It began in IT.
How It Started:
An Operational Fix That Became a Strategic Lever
The initial goal was straightforward: replace an end-of-life web chat tool used by the IT Help Desk. But early on, the IT Customer Experience team recognized a larger need and greater opportunity. Rather than treating the chatbot as a narrow technical solution, they began asking a broader question: what if the technology could help surface and proactively address where students were getting stuck?
“Once you see the patterns in the questions students are asking, you realize the problem isn’t just answering them faster,” said Kate McDowell, Senior Director of Strategic Communications at Adelphi University.
That question reframed IT’s role. Rather than owning only systems and integrations, IT became a conduit across institutional silos—translating student confusion into shared institutional action and helping establish the cross-functional collaboration that would later become operationalized through the Adele Communications Task Force.
What Changed:
Conversation as a Barrier Road Map
In January 2022, Adelphi University launched Adele, a conversational AI assistant powered by the Mainstay platform, to support high volumes of questions on certain Adelphi web pages. By March 2023, Adele was upgraded to support two-way SMS messaging for approximately 6,000 current students. Via SMS, Adele would send prompts, reminders and interactive nudges about academic and financial deadlines as well as engagement and learning opportunities. Students can hold ongoing text conversations with Adele and are directed to a human staff member when a question requires additional support. Students who opt in to receive messages can also initiate conversations with Adele at any time for guidance on specific needs.
Adelphi’s commencement team was the first to use Adele texting to remind eligible students of the steps required to apply for graduation and prepare for Commencement. The program significantly increased the number of students who completed all critical steps.
While Adele is very visible to students through this proactive SMS outreach, IT continues to expand the web-based chatbot across more pages of Adelphi’s website, supported by a growing knowledge base, generative AI and the dedicated Adele Communications Task Force. Both channels draw from the same knowledge base, voice, and institutional strategy—creating a unified digital support environment that supports members of the community and the public.
Since launching, Adele has helped to surface patterns that were previously unseen:
- Repeated student questions about academic and financial deadlines and requirements
- Students contacting the IT Help Desk when other offices were unreachable
- High-risk moments (e.g., phishing, access issues) where automation alone was inappropriate
- Points in the student journey where confusion signaled the need for human outreach
Crucially, Adelphi made deliberate service choices about what Adele processes are managed or automated in the Mainstay platform:
- High-risk situations that demand timely human intervention (safety, reputation)
- When needed, the bot requests human interaction from applicable offices in real time via email, rather than silently creating a helpdesk ticket
- Proactive outreach is identified and executed thoughtfully, not indiscriminately
- The bot’s knowledge base is actively managed to support strong Gen-AI results and customized answers where needed
Adele became both an answer engine and a front-line signal of institutional barriers.
To ensure that the platform could scale effectively across the institution, Adelphi established the Adele Communications Task Force in late 2023. Created collaboratively by University Communications and Marketing, which leads messaging strategy and student communications, and Information Technology, which manages the platform’s technical infrastructure and knowledge base, the cross-functional group also includes representatives from the One Stop Student Services Center, Student Affairs and Academic Services. The Task Force is supported by two dedicated Mainstay partners—an Engagement Specialist and a Partnership Director—who provide hands-on expertise in the platform and campaign management.
Each office brings a critical perspective on the Adelphi experience. One Stop Student Services supports students and prospects through key academic and financial interactions—from registration and billing to graduation. Academic Services works closely with One Stop to advise and guide students through course planning, registration and academic progress. Student Affairs oversees student engagement, support services and co-curricular opportunities that shape campus life.
Together, the Task Force supports the broader Adele conversational environment, which includes both two-way SMS messaging with current students and a public-facing web chat integrated across Adelphi’s website. While these tools serve different purposes—SMS supporting proactive outreach and ongoing student conversation, and web chat providing on-demand guidance for prospective and current users—they operate from the same knowledge base and share a consistent personality, brand voice and institutional mission. This coordinated approach helps Adelphi address the most common questions and barriers students encounter, strengthening the institution’s ability to support persistence and retention.
The Task Force’s oversight of student texting campaigns includes coordinating strategy, timing and message content across departments. Rather than allowing texting to develop in isolated pockets across campus, the group established a shared framework for how Adele engages students at critical moments in the academic and financial lifecycle. All University offices are encouraged to submit content ideas to the Task Force for inclusion in student SMS campaign plans.
Measurable Impact
Beginning in early 2024, the Task Force implemented a series of campaigns to test Adele-supported texting against traditional communication channels such as email, websites, social media and word of mouth. Over time, these efforts demonstrated where conversational outreach most effectively drives student awareness, engagement and action. In the past year, Adele has become a widely used student support channel:
Engagement
- 85,380 text messages received
- 94% overall student engagement
- 32.4% Active engagement (students replying or interacting)
- 61.5% Passive engagement (students receiving and viewing messages)
Student Satisfaction: Administered 1–2 times per year, a pulse survey helps assess satisfaction with Adele and the effectiveness of her support.
Undergraduate Students
- 69% Satisfaction Score (benchmark: 61%)
- 80% Helpfulness Rating (benchmark: 56%)
Graduate Students
- 62% Satisfaction Score (benchmark: 61%)
- 70% Helpfulness Rating (benchmark: 56%)
Operational Efficiency
- 81,167 messages handled by the bot
- At approximately one minute per message, this represents 1,353 staff capacity hours restored to higher-value student support
Impact of Generative AI Enablement
Since enabling Generative AI in July 2025, satisfaction with Adele’s responses and the accuracy of its matching to knowledgebase answers have continued to improve, further strengthening Adele’s ability to provide reliable support at scale.
From Pilot to Institutional Practice
As adoption expanded and results became measurable, the Task Force also recognized the need for institutional standards to guide the use of conversational messaging. The group developed a University policy establishing requirements and best practices for the approved use of text (one-way) and SMS (two-way) messaging to Adelphi community members through University-supported platforms, including Mainstay (Adele), Stellic, Slate, Regroup Alert, StarRez and Twilio.
In June 2024, Adelphi’s executive leadership formally approved the policy, operationalizing Adele’s SMS communication capabilities across the institution and ensuring that conversational messaging would be implemented in a coordinated, strategic and student-centered way.
5 Outcomes Worth Noting
1. From awareness to action
Before:
Student engagement relied largely on passive channels with inconsistent follow-through.
After:
A coordinated messaging strategy using Adele’s student SMS channel and website chat increased engagement and drove measurable action.
An interactive chatbot campaign supporting a spring concert generated a 50% year-over-year increase in sign ups, demonstrating that students were not only reached but motivated to act.
Over time, patterns in students’ questions and needs emerged from both SMS conversations and website chat interactions. These insights now inform proactive campaigns that address common challenges earlier—before confusion becomes a barrier to participation or success.
2. From limited capacity to expanded reach
Before:
A small number of staff attempted to support students through fragmented, reactive channels.
After:
A cross-functional task force—supported by two dedicated Mainstay partners (an Engagement Specialist and Partnership Director)—now delivers coordinated outreach and scalable support.
Through Adele’s 24/7 website chat, available across Adelphi web pages to students, prospects, families, faculty, staff, and other visitors, and through student SMS messaging, the University can engage far more stakeholders than traditional support channels could reach.
The Adele Communications Task Force designed campaigns and response flows that surface needs earlier, route questions more accurately and deliver support more efficiently—extending institutional capacity without expanding staffing.
“The goal wasn’t just to answer more questions,” said Nicollet. “It was to reach stakeholders before confusion turned into a bigger problem. Mainstay enables us to do that at a scale the IT Help Desk couldn’t achieve on its own.”
3. From channel fatigue to channel trust
Before:
Students associated institutional texting primarily with billing notifications, risking disengagement and opt-outs.
After:
A disciplined cadence (2–3 messages per week), thoughtfully diversified messaging and a carefully designed persona rebuilt trust in the channel.
The Adele Communications Task Force developed the platform’s voice and outreach parameters using higher education benchmarks and engagement data. Positioning Adele with a peer-like voice—more of a fellow student than an institutional authority—encouraged stronger engagement and more natural conversations.
In some cases, parents even corrected contact records to ensure that students—not parents—received the messages directly.
Trust became an operational asset, enabling the University to communicate timely information through a channel students were willing to engage with.
4. From misrouted demand to higher-value human work
Before:
Students frequently contacted IT for non-IT issues when other offices were difficult to reach or when the path to the right office was unclear.
After:
Adele now functions as a front-line support layer through both website chat and student texting.
The platform resolves routine questions instantly and routes more complex issues to the appropriate office using escalation pathways developed collaboratively across the institution. IT also monitors chats and jumps in as a “live human helper” if needed.
This approach:
- contains routine inquiries
- escalates only when human judgment is required
- directs staff time toward higher-value student support
The result is reduced avoidable demand and more consistent service across departments. Furthermore, responses reflect shared institutional knowledge—not just IT.
5. From operational tool to institutional insight
Before:
Student support interactions lived largely at the operational level, with limited institutional visibility.
After:
Data generated through Adele’s website chat and student SMS interactions now provides actionable insight into stakeholder needs across the University.
Performance metrics—including engagement trends, generative AI utilization and student satisfaction signals—are incorporated into regular executive leadership updates and board-level reporting.
Patterns in questions and conversations reveal where students and visitors encounter friction in university processes, allowing leadership to address barriers earlier and improve the overall student experience.
What began as a support tool has become a strategic institutional signal.
Why This Matters for Private Institutions
Private institutions operate in an environment of tight margins, limited staffing capacity and increasing pressure to retain and enroll students. Adelphi’s experience shows that capacity can be gained without expansion when institutions focus on removing barriers rather than simply adding tools.
Although true, the lesson is not that “retention and enrollment are everyone’s responsibility.”
The lesson is that IT took steps to break down silos to play a meaningful role in the bigger picture of institutional success.
Key Takeaway
Remove barriers → reduce avoidable demand.
Create shared visibility → coordinate better support.
At Adelphi, the Adele environment—spanning web chat and student texting—helps the institution identify where and when questions and conversations peak and respond in time to capitalize on those moments.
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