Customer Story
Australian Institute of Personal Trainers (AIPT) finds a faster way to follow up with students through SMS
Overview
Challenge: Find a more effective way to reach students and follow up on important communication when phone calls and email were not getting timely responses.
Solution: Sinch Engage, integrated into JobReady, enabled AIPT to automate SMS from system triggers and send manual texts when needed for reminders, confirmations and follow-up.
Results: More effective student communication, stronger support levels, time savings for staff and improved business performance including higher student graduation and assessment submission rates.
“We’ve been using SMS for 4 years and we’ve had great results. We will continue to use it as a communication channel with students.“
For AIPT, better student communication came down to one simple reality: if students were not responding to calls or checking email regularly, the team needed a faster way to reach them where they were already paying attention — on their phones. AIPT, established in 1999, had grown into Australia’s largest national provider and employment network in the fitness education sector, with more than 150 campuses and over 250 mentors nationwide.
The organisation was already using JobReady, a cloud-based student management system for vocational education and training programs, to streamline operations and automate business processes. When AIPT looked to improve student communication, it wanted something that would fit naturally into that system rather than create more work for staff. That led the team to Sinch Engage (formerly MessageMedia) through JobReady’s integrated SMS functionality, allowing messages to be sent automatically from system triggers or manually when needed.
Faster follow-up, better student response
At AIPT, SMS became especially useful in the moments when other channels fell short. Staff used it when students could not be reached by phone, when voicemail was not an option, and as a follow-up to emails or calls. One example Jan Parsons shared was booking a coaching session with a student, then sending an SMS confirmation and reminder to reinforce the appointment. AIPT found that students responded more readily to text messages, making SMS a more effective way to get information to them quickly.
The change also improved efficiency for staff. Parsons said SMS had saved the team time in following up with students, while also improving customer service levels. Because the messages were automatically saved as a record in JobReady, AIPT also benefited from having evidence of communication stored in the system. Over the years covered by the story, AIPT reported strong business performance, with improved student graduation and assessment submission rates supported in part by SMS.
