Case study
Case study
Podium Education is the leading experiential education company partnering with universities and industry partners to embed scalable, real-world, high-impact practices directly into the undergraduate degree for credit. Podium works with 100+ universities, including ASU, Harvard, Georgetown, and UT Austin, and 50+ leading employers like L’Oréal, Coinbase, OpenAI, and Wells Fargo. As the company grew, one problem became impossible to ignore: not every student and prospect received a timely call or follow-up.
With Thoughtly, Podium closed that gap. The team now reaches every lead, follows up on every opportunity, and keeps communication consistent without compromising on quality and connectivity. Podium’s use of Thoughtly as a telephony solution has enabled their experienced advisors to hold meaningful, relevant conversations with students that have a genuine interest in participating in their programming.
Podium Education is a fast-growing EdTech company based in Austin, Texas. Through programs like the Global Career Accelerator, the team helps students build practical, career-ready skills alongside their university education.
As enrollment increased, the demand on student success and enrollment teams grew with it. Podium needed a way to communicate with, and respond to, every student in a measurable way, without negatively impacting the user experience.
The Challenge
Podium had already implemented AI across chat, email, and SMS - those channels performed well. But voice remained the biggest gap.
Phone calls drive real outcomes for:
But the team could not consistently reach everyone.
They faced three core issues:
As Eric Mackintosh, VP of Academic Operations, said:
“We could never really get the telephone component right. For Podium, it’s the communication channel that was the most difficult to scale”
Podium needed a solution that could operate at scale while staying tightly connected to their systems and workflows.
Podium utilizes Salesforce as its CRM. Thoughtly connects directly to it, so every call, update, and workflow stays tied to real-time data.
The team works with sensitive student data, so they require strict compliance. Thoughtly met those standards with FERPA, SOC 2, and ISO compliance, along with clear data protections.
Podium’s team wanted control, not dependency.
They now:
“It’s as hands-on or as hands-off as we need it to be.”
Thoughtly works alongside Podium with weekly sessions, fast troubleshooting, and ongoing support.
“We feel like true partners with Thoughtly.”
Podium started with a focused pilot and quickly expanded across the student lifecycle.
The team launched with students who had disengaged or fallen behind.
Thoughtly agents:
Podium then expanded into enrollment workflows.
Agents:
Podium also enabled inbound calling for level 1 inquiries.
Students call in, get immediate answers on questions related to program logistics, and escalate only when needed. Coaches stay focused, and students get faster help.
With Thoughtly, Podium no longer relies on manual outreach to determine who gets contacted.
Every lead gets called. Every opportunity gets a follow-up.
“For the first time, we were able to call every single one of our opportunities.”
The team now handles thousands of calls each month while maintaining full coverage across their pipeline.
Podium now reaches 100% of leads instead of a limited subset.
This ensures:
Thoughtly removes repetitive outreach from the team’s workload.
Each coach saves about 1 to 1.5 hours per week. The team reinvests that time into deeper, more meaningful conversations with students.
“This has allowed our team to focus on the meaningful conversations that actually matter.”
Students receive timely outreach and can connect through voice when they need support.
This leads to:
Podium transformed voice from a gap into a system that guarantees coverage.
Thoughtly enables the team to reach every lead, follow up on every opportunity, and stay consistent at scale without sacrificing the human element.
As Eric Mackintosh puts it:
“Thoughtly has helped us scale the telephony component of our student support and outreach in a way we couldn’t before.”
Podium continues to expand how the team uses Thoughtly across new workflows and student touchpoints.
With full coverage in place, the team can grow with confidence and keep every student engaged.
Thoughtly gives your CRM a voice and helps teams call, qualify, and connect with people through real conversations at scale.
About the author
Will works on growth at Thoughtly — across marketing, content, partnerships, and customer success for the voice AI platform. Most of what he writes comes from working directly with the teams deploying Thoughtly's inbound conversational agents.
