How to set up an effective Auto Enrollment chain

Account admins and program admins

Opt-in messages are for programs that have auto-enroll enabled. For more information on auto-enroll and why you might want it enabled click here.

What is an Auto Enrollment message?

An opt-in message allows you to capture key information from unknown contacts who text into your program. Opt-ins are set up on a per program basis.

What if I don’t have opt-in enabled but I have auto-enroll on?

If a contact texts into your program but auto-enroll is enabled then the system will save the contact as Name Unknown (pictured below). And the contact will not receive a message.

Having an Auto Enrollment chain puts a name to the number. And gives you an opportunity to let the contact know who they are texting and what to expect.

Setting up an effective Auto Enrollment chain

There are three key parts to an effective Auto Enrollment chain.

1. Introduction - This should thank the contact for texting in and let them know who they are texting and that there will be a few questions that’ll need to answer in order for their profile to be completed.
2. Essential questions - Every opt-in chain should ask for the contact’s first name and the contact’s last name.
3. Custom questions - These are other questions that might be necessary for users to better interact with the contact. In the sample below the users needed to know if the contact was a student and parent, which then created a new layer of responses. You'll want to let Message know where you'd like questions saved for your custom questions.

Our best practice is to keep Auto Enrollment chains short and sweet - around five questions. If your chain will be longer it might help to let contacts know in the intro how many follow-up questions they’ll need to answer.