Podium Education Reaches 100% of its Opportunities with Thoughtly

The channel that wouldn't scale

Podium Education is the leading experiential learning and career platform. Podium's programs embed real-world, for-credit learning directly into the undergraduate degree. From its headquarters in Austin, Texas, Podium partners with 90+ colleges and universities, including ASU, Harvard, Georgetown, and UT Austin, to close the gap between college and careers.

Enrolling in one of Podium's programs is a high-consideration decision. Students want to talk to a person before they commit, and the program with the fastest, warmest follow-up usually wins the enrollment. Podium knew this, and had already built AI into chat, email, and SMS. Voice was the gap.

Every month brought in more inbound inquiries than the team could call. Follow-ups took a backseat to new opportunities. And success coaches, the people best equipped to actually help students, were spending hours on repetitive outreach instead of the conversations that needed them.

Some students would get a timely call, but many wouldn't. For a company whose entire model depends on turning interest into enrolled students and keeping those students engaged, that was the problem worth solving.

Starting where it mattered most: keeping students engaged

Podium started with the students who needed them most.

The first Thoughtly agent campaign reached out to students at risk of falling behind. These were the students who had disengaged and stopped responding to other channels.

The agent's job was to check in, offer support, and connect the student back to their success coach. The agent would either book a one-on-one meeting or warm-transfer the student to their coach in real time, on that same call.

It worked. Students who wanted to interact by phone finally had that channel. Coaches got their time back because they weren't chasing students. And students at risk of slipping away re-engaged.

Turning interest into enrollments

With the pilot proven, Podium pointed Thoughtly at the front of the funnel.

1. 1

   An enrollment advising agent now calls every student who expresses interest in the Global Career Accelerator program, answers their questions, and warm-transfers them to a human advisor when they're ready.

2. 2

   A deadline agent calls applicants who haven't finished their applications, reminds them what's left, connects them to an enrollment advisor, or leaves a voicemail if they don't pick up.

Some students would rather pick up the phone themselves. So once the team had a few campaigns under their belt, Podium turned on an inbound support agent who answers program questions immediately and transfers to a person when needed.

All calls and actions stay tied to real-time data in Salesforce. And because Podium works with sensitive student data, Thoughtly's FERPA, SOC 2, and ISO compliance made the security review a checkbox rather than a roadblock.

The result is coverage the team had never had before.

How they did it

Podium's rollout is a playbook any enrollment team could run, and it works because every use case is its own campaign: one agent, one audience, one objective.

1. Campaign 1

   At-risk re-engagement

   Reconnect disengaged students with their success coach

2. Campaign 2

   Enrollment follow-up

   Call every interested student, warm-transfer to advisors

3. Campaign 3

   Deadline reminders

   Nudge applicants to finish before the deadline

4. Campaign 4

   Inbound support

   Answer program questions, transfer when needed

The first campaign was re-engaging at-risk students. The audience was students who had disengaged, and the objective was getting each one back in front of their success coach, by booked meeting or warm transferWarm transferA live transfer where the agent connects a qualified caller to the right human while preserving context, instead of sending the caller to a cold queue or voicemail.Read full definition →. Thoughtly built the agent alongside Podium's team, connected it to Salesforce so every call worked from live student data, and launched it against real conversations. Once it proved itself, with coaches saving time and disengaged students coming back, Podium added the next campaign.

Enrollment follow-up came next, then deadline reminders, then inbound support. Each campaign defines who to reach and what a win looks like, and the agent handles the judgment calls in between: when to call, when to leave a voicemail, when to hand the student to a human. None of it required engineers on Podium's side, and none of it required a lengthy implementation.

A platform their whole team can run

Podium's team wanted control without needing engineers to get it.

The team updates scripts in real time, adjusts routing instantly, and tests and iterates without waiting on anyone. As Eric puts it, Thoughtly is as hands-on or as hands-off as they need it to be.

And they're never doing it alone. Podium and Thoughtly meet weekly, and when something needs attention, like a data question or a Salesforce integration tweak, it gets fixed fast.

More time for the conversations that matter

Podium's coaches and instructors are industry experts whose whole job is helping students progress. Thoughtly makes sure every student actually gets that time with them.

Each coach now saves 1 to 1.5 hours per week on repetitive outreach, time the team reinvests in deeper conversations with students. At-risk students engage at higher rates. Prospective students get answers in minutes instead of days. And no opportunity sits waiting for a coach to find time to call.

Voice went from being Podium's hardest channel to the one that guarantees every student gets reached. Interest becomes enrollment. Enrolled students stay engaged. And the humans spend their time being human.