How a “Bot” May Be The Information Air Traffic Controller Your University Needs
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"It Must Be Here Somewhere:" How a “Bot” may be the Information Air Traffic Controller Your University Needs
With the help of the Ivy.ai team, AV explores the benefits of using cutting-edge artificial-intelligence (AI) bot technology for colleges and universities and their stakeholders.
Executive Summary:
Connecting university stakeholders with accurate university website information is a critical engagement in the Higher Education information age.
Campus policies and resources are uber-fluid – from COVID protocols to Name/Image/Likeness (NIL) policies to the Admissions Process to Career Services.
Bots help reach families and lower the barrier to accessing reliable information.
The anonymity of bot-interactions help eliminate barriers and reduce the reluctance of students to ask questions they might otherwise be embarrassed to ask in-person.
Bot technology generates data for universities to better understand and serve their customers.
Prospective and current students might not keep the same hours university employees do; yet bot technology is available 24/7.
Data shows bots can reduce calls in high-volume campus units by conveying highly reliable information through a bot that facilitates a human-like conversation.
Bots can let university employees focus on more nuanced and complex questions, not the repetitive and straightforward low-hanging fruit inquiries.
Ivy.ai, with experience in higher education, healthcare, and government sectors, showcase how its bot can position Universities and their stakeholders for success.
The positive impact of bots can be revealed through Ivy.ai's case studies from the University of Alabama, Texas A&M University, and San Diego State University.
Let's set the scene:An aspiring graduate student jumps on to your university’s website thinking about making your school one of the three or four grad programs she will apply to.
She types in “Graduate Nursing Program” into your institution’s website search bar and the search takes her to a webpage featuring your undergraduate admissions page. Wait, undergraduate admissions?
Houston, we have a problem.
Information accuracy and accessibility on the internet are king when it comes to user-satisfaction. A university’s website and the content therein are, in many respects, the “front porch” for so many stakeholders -- future students, current students, current faculty and staff, alumni, and other visitors. Their first impression of your university is often their experience with your website.
Can a university’s web presence afford to lead their stakeholders astray?
Higher education is in its own information age with the proliferation of on-line learning delivery and technologies –many of which were nudged to center stage to overcome the pandemic-impacts of the past 18 months. Getting the right information to people searching for it on your university’s website becomes paramount.
What is the backstory on bots?
Ever seen a cartoon-like graphic pop up on the right corner of your computer screen when browsing the web asking “How can I help?” That’s a bot. And it is an example of artificial intelligence (AI) at work.
AI -- through the use of a bot, also called a chatbot -- could be the game changer that drives authentic on-line engagement with your university’s stakeholders in the 2020s and beyond.
According to Alexander Gillis of Techtarget.com, a bot is a computer program that operates as an agent for a user or other program, or to simulate a human activity. Bots are normally used to automate certain tasks, meaning they can run without specific instructions from humans.
An organization or individual can use a bot to replace a repetitive task that a human would otherwise have to perform often in the form of answering highly-repetitive questions or requests from end users. Bots are also much faster at these tasks than humans and bots are available 24/7.
AI chatbots, like the ones Ivy.ai produces, are a combination of rule-based and intellectually independent chatbots. Chatbots may also use pattern matching, natural language processing (NLP) and natural language generation (NLG) tools to help refine the content and matching of query to answer.
Enter Ivy.ai: Ivy.ai has been making impacts on campuses across America, as well as Canada, the U.K. and Australia, to prove the new technology’s staying power. Ivy.ai’s self-service bot is customized for colleges and universities and the bot technology endeavors to make university information more accessible, increase university-wide productivity and modernize university systems. Ivy.ai partners with university core units such as admissions, student services, financial aid, athletics, and marketing and communications to make information inroads.
Mary Frances Coryell, Vice President for Strategic Alliances and Partnerships for Ivy.ai, talked with AV about the impact AI and Ivy.ai’s bot technology can have for a university’s information eco-system.
“There is a structural divide in higher ed, a lack of cohesion. Student experiences, visitor experiences all matter,” explained Coryell. “The Ivy.ai bot can breakdown the silos.”
In addition to health care and government, Ivy.ai has created efficiencies for colleges and universities by better understanding what campus departments do, what information they are trying to relay, and weave the information in an accessible way via a bot to achieve efficiency.
Equal access to information in the higher education landscape is a big topic, too. Colleges and universities must recognize that various populations will have different access to devices and could have different language requirements. Enabling equality of access to information is what Ivy.ai can help universities deliver. Positioning your students for a more comfortable and successful communication environments is an additional bot deliverable.
“First generation college students may not know what a syllabus is and may be embarrassed to ask a professor about it” said Coryell. “This is where a bot can help students get answers in an anonymous fashion that can create a positive experience (with their university) and make people feel comfortable.”
Do bots take time to build accuracy in their answers? Do Universities maintain control of their bot?
“At the core, a bot of any size is garbage in and garbage out,” explained Coryell.
“A school should focus on 80/20. That is not 80% of their (total) content to start. That is starting with the content that drives 80% of their inbound transactions.”
Focusing on the higher volume transactional areas can also be an incubator to learn about your customers. “By making this the focus, the team prioritizes what will yield the fastest ROI (for the university) and then the data gleaned from the users creates a straight and narrow path of where information needs to grow,” added Coryell.
Ivy.ai gives its customers the tools to edit, add, and delete on demand, allowing the school to be in complete real-time control.
“This (capability) is tremendous in times of need like a hurricane or even Covid for that matter,” said Coryell. “These are times when information and policy is changing daily.”
College athletics is one such fluid knowledge area. The emergence of name/image/likeness rights for student athletes has created a "Wild West" sort of frontier, where individual universities, states and the NCAA are stitching together new policies on the fly and pivoting away from certain amateurism restrictions. These policies and restrictions are evolving day by day-- an AI bot can help athletes, coaches, boosters, agents, administrators and other stakeholders stay up-to-date with university guidance in this new landscape.
The build-out of a bot is the first key step in the process. According to a February 2020 Forbes article, it can take time to train and build an AI bot initially. However, AI bots can save a lot of time and money in the long run.
“It all depends on the scope (or depth) of understanding needed,” said Jason Fife, Director of Marketing for Ivy.ai. “If we need to consume and learn a lot of information, it will realistically take us about 8 weeks to build the bot, and then at launch it will be around 75% accurate. Over the course of the next 90 days the bot will improve to around 95% accuracy.”
“The smaller the bot scope, the less time it will take to launch and become proficient. In the end, the bot must learn just like a new employee. Anywhere between 30-90 days is realistic post launch for a bot to perform at a consistently high level,” Fife added.
How would Ivy.ai’s bot technology synch with a University’s information ecosystem?
It starts with the school’s data. In order to make the bot as effective as possible, Ivy.ai would crawl through your institution’s website and scrape every piece of data that goes into the bot’s “brain.” This scraped information can be reviewed by the university to ensure it is accurate and complete. Then the institution’s bot will then be connected to other vendor integrations.
Ivy.ai’s Fife explains: “If we connect to Banner, a student can authenticate their session within the chat window and ask questions like ‘what is my account balance?’ or ‘when is my next payment due?’ This allows end users to receive personalized support at scale.”
Once that content is synched into the bot, then the personalization process begins.
How does a human’s jargon get synched with reams of technical and policy content living on a university website?
That’s where the “botification” begins -- converting the scraped data and integration into human-relatable conversation.
Ivy.ai is able to index the information it has pulled through its proprietary crawling tool and then match it with natural language questions posed by a university’s key stakeholders including current and future students.
Let’s look at a few cases studies from campuses across the country demonstrating the impact of the Ivy.ai Bot tool.
The University of Alabama
Call volume coming in to a “customer”-oriented office like Admissions, Financial Aid, or Bursar’s Office can be significant. And the types of questions lighting up the phone lines can be very repetitive. This can be a recipe for long-waits, delayed responses and poor experience ratings.
Enter the example of the University of Alabama’s Student Account Services and its challenges with call volume. Not long after installing their Ivy.ai bot solution, Alabama’s Student Account Services office saw a significant decrease in call volume for the month of December, compared to the year prior.
“We had 10,000 fewer calls, and our AI chatbot was still brand new at that time,” said Kristy Pritchett, Director of Student Account Services at the University of Alabama.
“The type of calls changed from routine, repetitive questions to things that required a staff member’s intervention.” Alabama ultimately saw a reduction in extended staff hours, where staff no longer needed to stay late to service incoming calls.
As Alabama’s leadership learned from its bot solution, it offered the following tips for other universities to help prepare for using an AI bot:
Identify Wants and Needs: “Make a list of the challenges you’re facing that you expect to resolve with AI.”
Compare Alternatives: “Most AI solutions have differences – search for a provider that meets all of your needs.”
Talk to Other Institutions: “This is one of the great things about higher education – everyone is willing to share and learn from one another.”
Understand Campus Culture: “Be mindful of how things get done, and prepare to communicate through the appropriate channels.”
Connect the Dots: “Identify how your specific needs are met by your chosen AI solution.”
Address Concerns: “A common concern is that AI replaces jobs – in reality, it helps staff members achieve greater productivity and job satisfaction.”
Gather Support. “Other departments on your campus have the same needs. Come together to demonstrate a common need and achieve an enhanced campus experience."
Pritchett elaborated that people often seek answers to questions that some campus offices aren’t equipped to answer. “Students and parents don’t always perceive a difference between a billing office and a financial aid office, and so they’ll leave one office with some unanswered questions.”
As it relates to access, Pritchett noted: “Students communicate at different hours relative to when we work. They may be asleep in the earlier part of the day, and in class after that, so they often communicate late at night when we aren’t available.”
In this instance, AI helped improve Alabama Student Services productivity, customer satisfaction by being available 24/7, and positioned its staff to answer the more complex and nuanced questions.
‘Meet Them Where They Are’ – How a Bot Help Increase Student engagement with Career Services
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M students who need Career Center information can count on a certain digital Rough Collie named “Miss Rev” who’s smart, fast, and loyal -- resembling the school mascot. The center’s AI bot even shares some of its traits: it never strays from its home; it’s always happy to see students, and it responds instantly when summoned.
The Chatbot is on the ready to help Texas A&M students get more information about resumes and cover letters, career fairs, internships, co-ops, professional school applications, and more. To reach the conversation agent developed by Ivy.ai, students type in a question or key word or click on a topic in the chat window. Miss Rev whose fluffy face is pictured near each response, provides answers as well as links or pre-populated topics to click for additional information.
“Our Career Center site is large and has a lot of content,” says Texas A&M Career Services Executive Director Samantha Wilson. “We implemented the Chatbot to educate students and encourage them to visit, interact and engage further in the resources and tools we have.”
Texas A&M's Chatbot has had more than 14,300 conversations between mid-August 2019 and mid-May 2020. Abdullah Abdul Kader, senior career coordinator and the technology committee’s chair, reports during the same period, more than 10,600 questions or messages were submitted, and users clicked pre-populated topics during a chat approximately 22,400 times.
The Career Center staff had more than 20,300 advising contacts with students through appointments, open office hours, calls and emails, continuing a trend of increasing contacts in recent years.
More efficient engagement with Texas A&M Career Services would conceivably lead to their students being better prepared for all aspects of career mobilization including interviews, resumes, and ultimately landing jobs and internships.
Ivy.ai’s Bots & University Communications Office – Great Teammates Especially During Times of Crisis
San Diego State University
Before the onset of the pandemic, Scott Arnold, Public Affairs & Communications Specialist at San Diego State University, said they had already installed an AI chatbot on their website to supplement their communications mix.
“In addition to having the chatbot, we hosted office hours for counseling and in-person support, we leveraged social media channels, and we managed a lot of outbound and inbound emails.” However, that quickly changed when the state of California issued stay-at-home orders.
“Fortunately, we were able to leverage our chatbot more,” Arnold said. “Implementing banner-style alerts and notifications that delivered updates to users at the hourly level very early on.” This was helpful as SDSU made changes to their processes, such as converting their in-person office hours to virtual meeting rooms.
SDSU transitioned to a 3-tier communications approach during this time of crisis starting with their AI chatbot, passing unresolved inquiries to Live Chat agents, and escalating the most complex issues to advisors via virtual meetings. “This worked really well because, despite a sudden disruption, our staff could seamlessly provide consultative services through a new channel.”
Arnold added that their AI was beneficial to staff members during that period.
“Information was changing almost hourly, and some staff members weren’t accustomed to providing virtual service. AI made that much easier, since we could program automated responses and edit them in real-time.”
The AI solution chosen by SDSU includes a feature that scans the content of Live Chat interactions and provides agents with suggested responses. “It was a great way to ensure that our communications were uniform, it saved our staff a lot of time and effort, and it helped with gaps where staff members might not have been aware of new information that was recently added to the AI.”
An effective university response plan, including during a pandemic, should ensure that information is available through a variety of channels. AI platforms integrate chatbots, live chat, and other communication tools that provide institutions an advantage of supporting and adjusting their communications mix, especially as it relates to responding to a crisis.
A Few More Value-Adds and Intangibles about Bots
Chatbots are available 24/7 in multiple platforms via a website, text to it, or an app. Chatbots can help augment the customer service experience.
“Chatbots do not replace human jobs, but they add a role to your team that never sleeps,” Fife said. “To that end, it’s really important that leaders identify a solution that is capable of understanding all of the nuanced details of their institution. Otherwise, their service delivery will only be as strong as the bot’s depth of understanding.”
Bots have helped universities achieve enrollment goals. Specifically, there is the example from the University of Oklahoma, where the implementation of Ivy.ai’s bot helped secure their (then) largest freshman class in history.
There is also a study out of Indiana University that found students preferred the use of chatbots for self-help compared to traditional search.
Depending on each university department’s goals, Ivy.ai helps in these ways:
Convert more prospects by capturing their contact information directly into the customer relationship management (CRM) system and enabling institutions to qualify and nurture leads.
Ivy.ai’s outbound SMS nudging also makes it possible to lose fewer prospects to summer melt, especially as it relates to prospects who simply don’t have the support system around them to guide them through the necessary steps of enrollment.
Ivy.ai bots save time, especially as it relates to providing support for after-hours and holiday questions.
Ivy.ai customers routinely relay that not only do their inbound inquiries fall, but the nature of inquiries change. They begin providing consultative support for higher stakes issues, delivering a better customer service experience that allows fewer issues to slip through the cracks.
Ivy.ai’s bot development includes helping universities identify KPI, metrics, the overarching goal or objective and ways to measure it. Scalability and size of institution are no hurdles-- Ivy.ai has worked with colleges and universities of all shapes and sizes, from the Indiana University system to Belmont Abbey College.
The Bot-tom Line: Test Drive Ivy.ai’s Free ROI Calculator to See for Yourself
“Ivy.ai is truly custom-built,“ noted Fife. “No two schools are alike, and their bots shouldn’t be either. We’ve found a way to quickly and effectively create bots that reflect each institution’s brand, personality, and unique information. The experience that it creates for students is invaluable, and I love that I can be a part of that.”
University leaders can see for themselves – try the Ivy.ai ROI calculator here to learn more on what an Ivy.ai bot can do for your institution.
Athletics Veritas is presented for information purposes only and should not be considered advice or counsel on NCAA compliance matters. For guidance on NCAA rules and processes, always consult your university’s athletics compliance office, conference office, and/or the NCAA.
