Smarter Outreach for Workforce Teams

In this short session, you'll see real-world examples and how mobile-first communication is helping teams connect faster, work more efficiently, and improve outcomes. Transcript below.

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Max Schelkopf [00:02-59:00]: Welcome, everyone! Happy Wednesday! It's Wednesday, right? Yes, Wednesday. I am excited about today's session: Smarter Outreach for Workforce Teams. While everybody joins, if you want to throw your organization name or where you're joining us from into the chat window, I’ll lead it off.

I’m Max, and I’m joining from wonderful Central Illinois today. Obviously, I’m with Engage by Cell, and I’m super happy to be speaking with all of you today.

Marcia from Little Rock, Arkansas — wonderful to have you. Little Rock! I’ve been to Mena, Arkansas.

Megan is joining me from my team today. She’ll be in the chat window, so if any of you have any questions during the webinar, please feel free to throw them in the chat at any time during our presentation today. I’ll also have some time at the end for questions.

We’re going to be covering a bit of a hot topic. I know the session title is Smarter Outreach for Workforce Teams, but what that means to me is: how are we supposed to do more with less nowadays, right?

Welcome, welcome, welcome. We’ll go ahead and get started. We’re a couple minutes past the hour here, so I’ll share my screen and start with a few slides.

One of the biggest challenges we hear from workforce development organizations is communication — getting people to actually respond, engage, and participate. A lot of organizations are dealing with shrinking staff, larger caseloads, and increasing expectations.

So today, I want to show you a few simple ways organizations are using texting and mobile web apps to streamline communication, automate repetitive tasks, and make services easier to access for job seekers.

The two primary tools we’ll discuss are Engage by Cell’s text messaging platform and our mobile web app platform.

The text messaging side has several major use cases. One is mass outbound communication. That can be reminders, updates, hiring events, appointment confirmations, follow-up messages, training reminders, and more.

The other major use case is automated follow-up for case managers. You can take your existing caseload, upload it into the system, and automate personalized follow-up messages. Whether it’s once a week, twice a week, or once a month, you can have those communications automatically sent.

For example, if I were receiving the message, it might say: “Hey Max, it’s John over at the American Job Center just checking in to see how the job search is going.”

That saves a lot of time and headache for staff.

The next piece is the one-on-one text chat portal. If somebody replies to one of those mass messages and says, “Hey John, I need help with my resume,” that conversation gets routed into a separate queue where staff can respond directly.

To the end user, it just looks like a normal text conversation.

All conversations are saved, organized, and searchable. Staff can quickly jump between conversations and help participants get the services and resources they need.

The other tool is the mobile web app platform.

I always like to explain what a mobile web app actually is because everyone is familiar with hard-downloaded apps from the App Store or Google Play. Those are called native apps.

Engage by Cell used to build native apps, but we stopped several years ago because organizations were telling us it was becoming increasingly difficult to get people to download apps.

Case managers were spending time saying things like:

“Do you have an Apple or Android?”

“Go to the App Store.”

“No, not that app — this one.”

“Make sure you update it.”

It became cumbersome.

So we transitioned to mobile web apps.

A mobile web app looks and feels like a traditional app, but it’s entirely web-based. No download is required.

Users simply scan a QR code or click a link in a text message, and the mobile web app opens instantly.

Inside the app, organizations can include job boards, hiring events, forms, document uploads, resource libraries, calendars, appointment scheduling, training materials, and much more.

One huge advantage is that no IT team is required to build or maintain these apps.

I’m not a software engineer or IT specialist, and I can build these all day long. The system works with a drag-and-drop interface.

The analogy I use is: if you can build and maintain a PowerPoint presentation, you can build and maintain one of these.

They’re also extremely fast to deploy.

If you’re hosting a job fair and need a quick registration form, you can build it in minutes and text it out to thousands of people instantly.

I’d love to talk about these tools all day, but I’d rather show you.

If everyone wants to take out their phones and scan this QR code, it will populate a text into your phone that says “MAX” to the phone number 925-431-6822.

If you send that text, you’ll receive a message back saying:

“Thank you for texting the Career Center. We’ll keep you up to date on all career training and education opportunities.”

I’ll give everybody about 30 seconds to do that.

Now I’m going to share the actual platform.

What you’re looking at here is the administrative backend of Engage by Cell’s platform.

The tabs we’ll focus on today are:

* Text Messaging

* Mobile Web Apps

* Reporting

The text messaging platform has three core communication methods:

* Mass inbound

* Mass outbound

* One-on-one conversations

The first example is the primary keyword response.

That’s what we all just texted into.

This is simply a call to action that encourages people to opt in and learn more about your services.

Instead of using “MAX,” organizations usually use their organization name, acronym, or something like “JOBS” or “CAREER.”

Rather than a generic number, every Engage by Cell customer receives a dedicated localized phone number with a local area code.

That’s intentional because people are significantly more likely to respond to local numbers they recognize.

The keyword response serves several purposes:

1. It gives you a call to action you can place on flyers, websites, social media, and email signatures.

2. It identifies who you are and what the texts are about.

3. It captures subscribers and builds your contact database.

Below the primary keyword are secondary keywords.

These allow organizations to create additional targeted calls to action.

For example, a workforce organization in Texas could create a “JOBS” keyword tied directly to the Work in Texas job board.

When someone texts that keyword, they receive a message with a direct link to the job board.

Organizations often create different keywords for different programs:

* Youth programs

* Adult services

* Apprenticeships

* Manufacturing jobs

* Healthcare careers

That way, they know exactly what people are interested in based on what they texted in.

Next is mass outbound communication.

Let’s say you’re hosting a hiring event.

You can create a message like:

“Job Fair next Friday from noon–4 p.m. Hiring on the spot. Please bring a resume. Click here to register.”

You can choose which lists receive the message and schedule it to go out automatically on different dates and times.

For example:

* Initial announcement

* Reminder the day before

* Reminder the morning of the event

Now, let’s roleplay.

Pretend I’m a job seeker and I reply:

“I need help with my resume before the job fair.”

That message routes into the one-on-one conversation portal.

A case manager can respond directly:

“No problem, Max. Would you like to send it over or schedule an appointment to work on it together?”

Again, all conversations are saved and exportable via PDF, Excel, or copy/paste.

Organizations can also set automated notifications so staff are alerted whenever someone sends a message.

The platform also allows organizations to create unlimited subscriber lists.

Most workforce organizations organize contacts by:

* Program type

* Office location

* Eligibility stage

* Youth vs. adult services

* Training interests

* Follow-up status

Now let’s move into the mobile web app platform.

This example is from the City of Chicago workforce system.

One of their biggest challenges was handling paper intake forms and document exchange.

They digitized the entire process.

Users can scan a QR code, open the app, and complete forms directly on their phone.

Participants can:

* Fill out intake forms

* Upload documents

* E-sign forms

* Register for workshops

* Access job boards

* View training providers

* Access community resources

* Schedule appointments

Once forms are submitted, the system automatically generates PDFs and emails them directly to staff.

Organizations can also link to existing resources.

For example, Chicago links directly to Metrics Learning for online training and certifications.

The mobile web app platform also includes AI-powered tools.

For example, a participant could ask for help writing a resume for an Amazon delivery driver role.

The AI can recommend keywords, generate resumes, assist with cover letters, and recommend training programs.

These tools are highly customizable.

Now I’m going to show you how content is actually built.

This example is from the U.S. Virgin Islands workforce system.

Again, common workforce use cases include:

* Job boards

* Training resources

* Appointment scheduling

* Document uploads

* Contacting case managers

To create content, staff simply drag and drop components into the builder.

For example, if we wanted to create a job fair registration form, we could drag in fields for:

* Full name

* Phone number

* Email address

Hit save, and the form is live.

You can then copy the page link and text it to thousands of people instantly.

Organizations can also add:

* Images

* Videos

* Audio files

* Surveys

* Maps

* PDFs

* Fillable forms

* Conditional logic

For example, a form can ask:

“Are you currently employed?”

Depending on the answer, the user can be routed through a different workflow.

This helps organizations direct participants to the appropriate services.

The overall goal is to simplify the process for both staff and participants.

At the end of the day, it’s all about making services easier to access and helping workforce organizations do more with less.

I know I’m a little over time here, but I’d love to answer any questions.

If you’d like to learn more about Engage by Cell, schedule a demo, or discuss pricing, please feel free to reach out.

You can contact me directly at:

[max@engagebycell.com](mailto:max@engagebycell.com)

You can also call or text my direct line.

Thank you all again for joining me today.

I hope everybody has a phenomenal rest of the week.

And as always, feel free to reach out to Engage by Cell if you have any mobile engagement needs.

Thank you, everyone. Have a great day!

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