About Western Illinois University
5,300+
undergraduate students
14.5%
international students
250+
registered student organizations
Customer support is one of the biggest elements of our success with Involve. I can send them a message—either an email to my Customer Success Manager or a chat in the backend of the platform—and then they'll respond super quickly, usually within minutes. With our last platform, it usually took three or four days to get a response. That would never happen with modern Campus.
John MooreThe Challenge
Western Illinois University tried a different student engagement tool prior to onboarding Modern Campus Involve, which helped them clarify what they truly wanted out of a co-curricular platform. After several years, they realized two main goals for their platform usage moving forward.
Goal #1: Increase excitement and usage of the platform, with an easy-to-use interface that students and staff would intuitively understand how to navigate.
Our previous platform was not very user-friendly for our students. They had a hard time navigating the platform and accessing the content. It was getting a negative connotation around campus. Even the most passionate student leaders didn’t want to use it.
John MooreGoal #2: Accelerate and optimize the benefits of co-curricular engagement with reliable, accessible and hyper-personalized Customer Support and Success.
When we would ask questions or request help from our previous platform, it would take way too long to hear back. So we’d often try to solve things on our own, but then we’d hit a lot of roadblocks.
Nick KatzWIU’s Student Engagement team needed a platform that would do more than keep their office running and engagement stagnant. They needed their platform to be a triple threat: provide outstanding features, encourage widespread usage and serve as a reliable partner, clearly invested in their success.
The university decided to make a change: switch to a platform that would undeniably provide a strong return on their investment.
The Solution & Results
Prior to selecting Involve as their new co-curricular engagement tool, WIU’s Student Engagement team sought opinions from everywhere and everyone. Katz and Moore showcased the platform’s innovative features and user-friendly interface to student leaders, as well as their colleagues in Academic Affairs, Athletics, WIU’s satellite metropolitan campus and more.
Many people were nervous about changing platforms, but they were impressed by Involve. The Student Engagement team discovered that Involve had a matching solution to meet the goals of each WIU department.
So, when WIU onboarded Involve, they had widespread buy-in and support from all corners of campus.
Unparalleled customer support and ease of use allow WIU to make the most of Involve
The real test would come down to Involve’s Customer Success and Customer Support teams: would they hold up to their word as ongoing, reliable partners?
It’s safe to say that Modern Campus’s award-winning teams continually ace that test.
Nick Katz and John Moore frequently connect with Michele, their dedicated Customer Success Manager. Over a mix of video calls, phone calls and emails, Michele is a trusted partner in helping WIU Student Engagement develop the right strategies to meet everyday goals and make long-term visions a reality.
We’ve never ever felt like Involve’s customer support reps are in a rush to get to another customer or end a meeting. With our previous platform, I felt like we were very little fish in a very big pond. The company didn’t have much time for us. That’s not true with Involve at all. They really care about our success and will take the time to help us through even the smallest hurdles.
Nick KatzAdditionally, Katz and Moore, along with any Involve user with administrative access—including students—can open up a chat with a live Support Associate, right through WIU’s engagement portal, any time. Student leaders and collaborative partners can troubleshoot problems, discover new functionalities and learn clever tactics without needing to ask The Office of Student Engagement. Involve takes care of the heavy lift, so WIU’s Student Affairs team can focus on what they do best: boosting co-curricular engagement and learning.
Involve’s comprehensive library of support resources also boosts usage. Staff and student leaders can access Q&As, support articles and recorded tutorials any day, any time, right from the engagement portal itself. Unlike with other engagement platforms, there’s no need to remember another URL and log on elsewhere.
Katz appreciates that Involve’s support resources were clearly designed with today’s learners in mind.
Students are used to getting information quickly and visually, often through YouTube, Tik Tok or Instagram. So I love that the support resources they can access to teach them to use Involve are so video based. It goes a long way in empowering them to take full advantage of the platform.
Nick KatzInvolve’s user-friendly tools remove barriers to engagement, improve programming and foster collaboration between departments
Customer Success wouldn’t matter if Involve didn’t have the right tools to help WIU meet its goals.
Fortunately, WIU has been wowed by that too. Multiple features are fostering greater engagement on campus, including:
One-Stop Shop Branded Web Portal & Mobile App: Without a student engagement platform, WIU students would have to search the halls for posters, scour multiple websites and social media pages, or stop by the Student Engagement office to find out about opportunities to get involved.
But Involve simplifies the search. Its branded web portal and matching mobile app—which WIU named Leatherneck Link after the university’s mascot—centralize every student club, organization and event in one highly accessible place. Filters and tags make it easy to find the right opportunities any day, any time, from any device connected to the internet.
Digital Event Check-In: WIU has traded paper sign-in forms for Digital IDs. Students no longer need a pen or even their physical IDs to check themselves into events; instead, Involve has created a unique digital ID for each student to save to their phone. Any staff or student volunteer can then check students in with a simple scan from their own mobile device. It’s fast, easy, efficient—and generates a complete, accurate attendance list every time.
Optimized Co-Curricular Experiences: WIU’s New Student Orientation team is excited by how Involve can help advance orientation events and opportunities. Thanks to Involve’s Experiences feature, they can:
- Use drag-and-drop technology to quickly build beautiful display pages that detail and advertise each event within Leatherneck Link
- Empower collaboration by granting other WIU departments admin administrative access to design their own Experiences
- Assign skills and levels to each experience to promote deeper co-curricular learning and track student outcomes
Live Data & Analytics Dashboard: Katz and Moore love the dynamic visual reporting that’s automatically generated to their Involve administrative dashboard. They’re even encouraging student leaders to dive into the data through custom demographic attributes.
In the near future, The Office of Student Engagement plans to work with Enrollment Management in order to connect engagement data with retention. Like Valdosta State University, they hope to uncover concrete evidence proving that engagement supports student persistence.
Involve has finally given WIU what staff and students have long hoped for: student engagement and development tools that simplify processes, promote greater involvement and encourage campus-wide collaboration. Just as importantly, they can confidently rely on Customer Success and Support teams that are easy to reach, quick to respond and always helpful in offering creative solutions.
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About Modern Campus
Modern Campus empowers 1,700+ higher education institutions to attract, engage, and retain learners for life with software solutions that enable a modern student experience.
The Modern Campus learner-to-earner lifecycle platform powers solutions for web content management, conversational text messaging, catalog and curriculum management, career pathways, student engagement and development, and non-traditional student management. The result: innovative institutions engage their modern learners for life, while providing modern administrators with the tools needed to streamline workflows and drive high efficiency.
Learn how Modern Campus is leading the modern learner-to-earner movement at moderncampus.com and follow us on LinkedIn.