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Mongoose

Score6 out of 10

1 Reviews and Ratings

What is Mongoose?

Cadence, developed by Mongoose, is positioned as Higher Ed's premier texting platform that aims to streamline communication and engagement within higher education institutions. The vendor claims that Cadence is an IT-friendly solution built entirely on the cloud, requiring no additional IT investment. It is specifically designed for higher education administrators, admissions and enrollment professionals, student services and success professionals, as well as alumni relations and development professionals.

Key Features

IT-friendly: According to the vendor, Cadence is built on the cloud, making installation easy and eliminating the need for additional IT investment. The vendor also emphasizes that the platform ensures a secure and hassle-free experience for IT departments.

Works with your current information systems: The vendor states that Cadence offers multiple data integration options to seamlessly integrate with existing information systems. This integration aims to ensure that data is always up-to-date, potentially leading to increased efficiency for staff.

Built for efficiency: Cadence includes various time-saving features, such as texting campaigns for group messaging, auto-responses for automatic replies, and shared inboxes for collaborative management. The vendor claims that these features can help streamline communication processes and potentially improve productivity.

Number validation: The vendor asserts that Cadence automatically validates phone number data, ensuring that all messages are delivered in a carrier-friendly manner. It also claims that the platform cleans up phone number data, reducing errors and potentially improving message delivery rates.

Dynamic analytics: The vendor highlights that Cadence provides real-time performance tracking, allowing users to monitor the effectiveness of their communication campaigns. The platform enables the export of activity of incoming and outbound messages, tracking opt-outs, undelivered messages, and unread messages. The vendor suggests that this data can be utilized to better serve contacts and improve engagement.

Secure: According to the vendor, Cadence ensures a high level of security for communication. The platform employs robust encryption protocols and data protection measures to maintain the confidentiality and safety of information and messages.

User-friendly interface: The vendor claims that Cadence offers a user-friendly interface that is intuitive and easy to navigate. This design aims to enable users to quickly adapt to the platform and maximize its capabilities without extensive training.

Customizable templates: The vendor states that Cadence provides customizable templates that can be tailored to match an institution's branding and communication style. This feature allows for consistent and professional messaging across all interactions.

Automated workflows: According to the vendor, Cadence offers automated workflows that can be set up to handle repetitive tasks and streamline communication processes. This feature is intended to save time and effort for staff, enabling them to focus on more critical tasks.

Mobile app: The vendor highlights that Cadence offers a mobile app that allows users to access the platform and manage communication on the go. This flexibility aims to ensure that users can stay connected and responsive, even when away from their desks.

Cadence sometimes misses the beat

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Cadence is a texting platform that allows us to interact with our constituents via text. This works well for those that we can't reach through email and also allows us multiple avenues of communication with those donors who have both an email (we use a separate software platform for email communication) and mobile number. We inform our audience (donors and alums) of events on campus, opportunities for engagement, and ways to support our mission. We are able to reply to any responses in real time, or through "smart messages" where a key word or words triggers an automated response.

Pros

  • easy to set up segments in order to reach certain portions of the audience
  • easy opt-out for recipients
  • simple reporting after texts are sent

Cons

  • There is built-in connection with Raiser's Edge NXT but the field mapping is overly complicated and setting it up requires action both on customer end and Cadence end
  • Cannot update a bad email address without deleting the record and re-importing it
  • Cannot simply add records - must be done through import from a spreadsheet
  • assigning a record to a user can only be done during initial import

Return on Investment

  • Too early (one year) to have hard ROI info, but we have had constituents who have indicated a preference for text as their primary means of interacting with our organization.
  • Even with the integration with Raiser's Edge NXT it takes time to update the database with opt-outs.
  • We have fewer constituents with mobile numbers than those with email addresses. We will have to appeal to our constituents to share mobile numbers with us

Alternatives Considered

Mailchimp

Other Software Used

Raiser's Edge, Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT, Mailchimp