HeartLine Spreads Awareness and Gains 20,000 Text Subscribers With Textel

About HeartLine
HeartLine is a non-profit service that connects Oklahomans to essential resources. With a database of 1,141 provider agencies representing 9,864 vetted services across 37 counties, HeartLine’s resource specialists connect community members in need to the help they need at any hour of the day. In the event of emergencies, like the COVID-19 pandemic, HeartLine is available 24/7, 365 days a year, to offer specialized triage and screening services. They also provide an online Community Needs Dashboard that serves as a tool for provider agencies and community leaders to identify trends, needs, and gaps in services.

Industry: Non-profit social services

Location: Tulsa, OK

Contact Center Size: 65-70 seats

Use Case: Increase brand awareness, streamline operations, compliant communications

Product: Textel Conversations integration with NICE CXone

The Problem: HeartLine Needed a Channel to Proactively Share Services and Resources With Their Community

In February of 2020, Eastern Oklahoma, still thawing from a debilitating winter storm that left thousands without water in Tulsa, faced mass shutdowns. Along with the rest of the country, Oklahoma was navigating the unknowns of the early COVID-19 pandemic and an ensuing uptick in unemployment.

More than 100,000 people reached out to HeartLine for help in those first few weeks. Some needed assistance with utilities, and others with rent. And still more needed help accessing medical care.

Michael Coonfield, Director of Strategic Operations, and Ashlie Casey, Program Director for HeartLine, knew they needed to be more proactive in supporting and educating residents about the services that were most relevant to them.

“It’s those instances where we want to notify them of disaster relief resources immediately,” Casey explained.

They needed a way to promote their brand and to get information out to their community through a channel that would actually reach them — via text. And ideally, they were looking for a texting solution that would be able to extend the functionality of their existing contact center platform NICE CXone. They needed to simply add to the workflow they had in their contact center. And as luck would have it, the Textel integration with NICE CXone came to the rescue.

The Solution: With Textel, HeartLine was Able to Spread Brand Recognition While Supporting Their Workflow

Once Textel was implemented, HeartLine began building a texting contact list. They promoted texting at every touchpoint with their customers — on their website, in video, in their IVR messages, and with every caller. They saw immediate results, adding over 20,000 users to their text subscription list and retaining nearly all of them.

“Out of the 20,000 subscribers we send text messages to, we may get 40-50 people unsubscribe each month,” Coonfield said. “That’s only a 0.2% unsubscribe rate, which is fantastic for us. And we still have a whole lot more people sign up to replace the customers we’ve lost.”

To measure the impact of their texts, HeartLine would include unique links for each text message. This helped them know which messages make a difference. Texting their customers was working. They found that anytime they sent out a text message, they would quickly see a spike in web traffic and an increase in call volume. The word was getting out!

“We gained a lot of brand recognition when we added texting,” Coonfield said. “We could send our logo and social media links within a message, so our customers always associated our texts with our logo.”

And with greater recognition, their customers were noticing the wealth of information that HeartLine offered.

“There are a lot of customers subscribing to texts and engaging with our agents more than ever before,” Casey added. “Textel has allowed us to reach people instantly with information that can positively change their lives.”

Textel Helped HeartLine Streamline Their Operations

With the Textel Text Bot integrated in NICE CXone, HeartLine could speed up their processes as agents managed inbound texts. When a customer texts in, the Text Bot gathers the necessary customer demographic information, then routes the text to an agent to help with referrals, making for a smoother, streamlined operation.

“With the integration between NICE CXone and Textel, our contact center agents can easily manage texts in the same window they use for chats,” Coonfield explained. “So, they see no difference between the two skills. It fits right into our workflow!”

According to Coonfield, this lets them also be more strategic with their texts. If agents are slammed with incoming calls, texts can help to drive incoming traffic to the website or relieve agents of the monotony on the phone.

Textel Helped HeartLine Communicate Freely and Stay Compliant

HeartLine found ways to strategize their SMS campaigns. With Textel, they worked out a calendar to send blast text notifications so they could strategically reach their users during the busiest seasons.

By segmenting lists for outbound Blast texts, they can target a specific segment of their users, like a specific county, to communicate needs that are relevant to that region.

Then, depending on the text’s importance, HeartLine coordinates their social media marketing (Facebook, Instagram, etc.), newspapers, and news channels to align with the text notification, ensuring customers get the same information on all fronts.

In the meantime, HeartLine could trust that they were staying within TCPA compliance using Textel’s opt-in/opt-out management tools. When a user unsubscribes, Textel automatically removes those customers from the master list, keeping HeartLine legally in the clear.

The Result: With Textel, HeartLine Expanded Brand Awareness and Text Adoption

Gained 20,000 text subscribers.

After they added texting, HeartLine saw their contact list grow exponentially, gaining 20,000 text subscribers. This let them expand their outreach, offering more essential resources and information to their community.

Lowered unsubscription rate to 0.2%.

HeartLine noticed the popularity of texting with their customers, seeing only a 0.2% unsubscription rate with their texting list. Using Textel, it was easier for them to offer value to their customers, reaching customers in their preferred channel of communication.

Streamlined operations and demographic data collection.

With the help of the Textel Text Bot integration in NICE CXone, HeartLine could rely on automations to gather essential customer data before routing the customer to a live agent. They were also able to stay compliant using opt-in/opt-out tools to manage their subscription list.