Identifying Contact Data Needed

Overview

The contact data you will need to share with Mainstay will depend on the goals for your chatbot. At a minimum, you'll need to upload all contacts with their name, phone number, and a unique identifier. You always have the ability to include additional custom data, depending on what contact information you'd like to see Mainstay's platform. Keep in mind, the data that you import for your contacts can be used to communicate more specific populations with targeted messages.

Minimum Required Data

To message contacts via a closed SMS chatbot (read more about the differences between a closed bot and an open bot here), all you will need to share is the contact’s first name, last name, phone number, and a unique ID.

Additional Useful Data

You can also choose to share more data with Mainstay. The data you upload will appear by the contact's conversation, so you can use it to offer more pertinent responses when following up with students and check information about that student without opening your CRM.

You will also have the ability to target students for specific campaigns based on additional data uploaded using the query builder tool. Check out Filtering Contact Data for more information on how to do this.

Some additional data you might want to upload includes the contact's email, their financial aid status, if the student is in-state or out-of-state, and their application status (prospect, applicant, admit, and more).