Keiser University

About Keiser University

Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Keiser University is a private, non-profit institution, serving nearly 20,000 students across Florida, online, and internationally. Offering more than 100-degree programs and a mission focused on student success, Keiser is recognized as a national leader for advancing social mobility and expanding access to high-quality career-focused education.

Keiser's Challenge

At Keiser University, clear, timely communication with students isn’t just helpful — it’s essential. For departments like Admissions and Financial Aid — which Vice Chancellor of Information Technology Andrew Lee calls ‘key touchpoints’ for building trust and driving enrolment — meaningful connection hinges on fast, responsive dialogue.

But reaching students was becoming increasingly difficult.

‘Our entire student demographic has shifted,’ explains Lee. ‘They won’t answer the phone, and they won’t reply to emails.’
This shift created a serious bottleneck. Staff relied heavily on personal outreach, but when traditional channels failed, conversations simply didn’t happen.

The Old System: Why it Wasn't Working 

Keiser recognized that text messaging was the one channel students actually paid attention to. But the university’s existing system wasn’t built for speed or interaction. Messages had to be logged in the SIS, emailed to a third-party serviced, and then converted into SMS — a multi-step process that was anything but instant.

‘It took forever,’ Lee recalls. A single message could take over 20 minutes to send, while replies could take up to an hour, making real-time conversations impossible.

In frustration, staff resorted to texting students from their personal phones — a risky workaround that created a Shadow IT problem. These unsanctioned channels gave the university no visibility, no records, and no control. When employees left, student communication history went with them.

Requirements: What Keiser Needed 

The university's requirements were clear:

• A faster, more reliable way to text students

• A solution designed for real-time, two-way engagement

• Seamless integration with Microsoft Teams

• Full control, compliance, and data visibility

And that's where YakChat came in.

The Solution: SMS/MMS in Microsoft Teams 

Microsoft recommended YakChat to Keiser University, and Lee immediately saw the potential: a powerful, two-way SMS/MMS solution built directly into Microsoft Teams — the communications hub Keiser staff already used every day. 

‘We started a pilot of YakChat with our admissions departments.’ Lee explains. ‘They immediately started making a lot more connections — a lot faster ­— using that software. Instead of calling and calling just to try and make an appointment, staff now get near-instant responses from students.’

After success with Admissions, the solution was rolled out to Financial Services, with the same results.

Fast Rollout, Effortless Adoption 

YakChat required no staff training and integrated directly with Keiser’s existing workflows.

'Once we started using YakChat,' Lee says, 'we never felt the need to try anyone else. It worked well, it was affordable, and it was very easy to use.'

Moreover, getting started was almost instant. ‘We set up accounts and within 5 or 6 minutes, staff are texting,’ Lee adds. ‘It’s super simple. We don’t have to train users —just tell them to install the app and they’re off!’

YakChat’s seamless integration with Microsoft Teams made it a natural fit for Keiser. ‘YakChat just snaps into Teams,' Lee explains. 'It’s a natural extension of the tools we’re already comfortable with.’

Now Staff can send and receive SMS and MMS directly within the Teams interface they use for calls, video meetings, and internal messaging. YakChat has become a critical part of a truly unified communications experience. ‘It simplifies everything,’ Lee concludes. ‘One platform for chat, calls, meetings — and now texting.’

Immediate Impact 

The results were immediate and unmistakable. Departments using YakChat saw a dramatic improvement in contact rates — a result that’s now driving plans for a broader rollout across more staff and locations.

‘YakChat makes it easier to make that first touch with students,’ says Lee. And once that initial connection is made, staff can maintain fast, responsive dialogue, using student’s preferred communication method: text messaging. The impact has been transformational.

Importantly, that transformation extends beyond simple text-based messages. With YakChat's built-in MMS support, staff can also send and receive documents and images without extra steps — making every task faster and more efficient.

For Lee, the difference was simple: ‘It just makes our staff’s jobs easier.’

Compliance and Control: Solving Shadow IT

Crucially, YakChat integrates with Keiser’s CRM via Power Automate, using its dedicated connector. Every student conversation is now:

• Automatically captured

• Logged in the CRM system

• Wholly secure and traceable

This eliminated Keiser’s Shadow IT issue and gave the university complete visibility and control over all student interactions.This gave Lee confidence that YakChat was exactly the solution they needed.

‘YakChat does exactly what we want it to do,’ he says. ‘We need instant, reliable SMS messaging. And that’s just what it does.'

Operational Reslilience, Anywhere

For Keiser, YakChat supports more than just efficiency: It supports business continuity. Lee explains, ‘In Florida, hurricanes shut down campuses multiple times a year. We have to send people home — but we still need to operate as a business. Having phones and messaging in Teams means we can keep everything running from anywhere. A fully cloud-based system is critical.’

A Seamless Fit for Microsoft Teams — and for Keiser University

YakChat is central to Keiser's strategy of unifying communications in Teams. Lee agrees. ‘Yes, it’s one less app. In a world of multiple applications, we’re trying to simplify. Especially in the Teams world, we’re pushing as much as we can into Teams, so it becomes the one place people need to go.’

YakChat fits that strategy perfectly — giving staff the ability to manage chat, video, calls, and now text messaging — in one centralized place.

YakChat: Trusted and Recommended

For Andrew Lee, though, what sets YakChat apart isn’t just its functionality — it’s the exceptional partnership Keiser University has built with the team behind it.

‘YakChat was introduced to us by Microsoft. We tried it. We loved it. And we’ve been here ever since,’ Lee shares. ‘It’s been a really good relationship.’

While the platform’s features play a critical role in meeting Keiser’s communication needs, it’s the responsive, high-quality support that elevates the entire experience.

‘You guys deliver,’ says Lee. ‘Your support staff is spot on and very timely. Even when we’ve had questions, we’ve never waited more than 30 minutes for a response.’

That level of service has earned YakChat Keiser’s ongoing trust, ‘You’re top notch,’ he says, then adds with a smile, 'I wish more vendors were like YakChat'.