Personalization meets Bots

It's 2040. Vinny Sagata (not her real name) made waves with her claim that an AI-powered Admissions Bot, a product of her 15-year-old research, has become an essential team member. So much so that every 13 of August, the Admissions Team celebrated its birthday, recognizing the date when it was launched.

Short on time? Listen to the conversation here

Are you raising your eyebrow?

You are not alone. Some might have done so as well. In the coming years, will we reach a symbiotic relationship with bots and machines, so much so that we celebrate their existence?

Drowning

The admissions team was drowning in a sea of repetitive inquiries. The constant influx of inquiries was overwhelming, and relying on staff to respond manually to each one was simply unsustainable. In addition to inquiries, applications needed to be reviewed and processed, interviews with alumni scheduled, and new enrolments onboarded. It was clearly not the core activity that added value.

The atmosphere became tense, and team members started to resign. The department's reputation as a fun place to work evaporated, and finding new staff became challenging.

Due to budget restrictions, a request for help hiring more staff or outsourcing inquiry management was rejected. Furthermore, some members of the Executive Committee highlighted complaints of slow responses. Vinny felt she was drowning with her team and knew there must be a better way to overcome this situation.

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THE Coffee...

After a staff town hall, she had coffee with a colleague from the newly launched School of NextGen Technologies. The conversation initially focused on the admissions requirements for new programs they were about to launch. Once agreed, Vinny took the initiative to share her sorrows.

She was perplexed by the positive response. Her colleague Linda suggested creating a custom-made large language model (LLM) for Admissions. Vinny felt excited, though she wasn't entirely clear about what an LLM entails, and mentioning AI initially scared her.

She envisioned a solution that would instantly reply to every inquiry and classify and tag leads for further engagement. Could it also highlight candidates with a higher chance of enrolment through sentiment analysis? Linda smiled and nodded.

After several months of work, an intelligent bot assistant was designed to handle most email inquiries.

Say HELLO to Botad

Initially, Botad was a simple chatbot that answered basic questions about deadlines, application requirements, and campus life. But as it learned and evolved, it became much more. Botad could soon analyze incoming emails, understand the intent behind each query, and generate tailored responses. If it encountered a complex question or a situation that required human intervention, it would flag the email for a staff member to review everything with total transparency for the candidate.

Tags became a great way to cluster leads and organize targeted sessions around a specific topic. The candidates' excitement was palpable, and the admissions team could see increased conversion rates—and obviously, the light at the end of the tunnel, with a reasonable number of inquiries they had to handle, thanks to Botad.

The glossy world of AI?

In a time when we are made to believe that AI can now solve many bottlenecks, it feels easy to get along and accept this narrative.

Although artificial intelligence (AI) has existed for centuries, the term was coined in 1956 at the?Dartmouth Conference. It took humanity about 70 years to convert it into a practical solution.

Despite the hype, many universities didn't use AI in Admissions. Crafting marketing messages was the first approach to generative AI. Some tested bots; however, the scope of the replies was narrow, and many considered it too costly to develop an end-to-end solution with a "yet-to-explore-more" technology.

In a short LinkedIn poll, skepticism about bots and their effectiveness became clear:

Similarly, candidates like Eduardo felt frustrated, so the reputational risk of serving them quickly became too high, and Admissions Teams abandoned the experiment.

Hot or Flop?

The benefits of Botad were clear:

• Efficiency: Botad automated routine inquiries, freeing up staff time to focus on more strategic initiatives.
• Consistency: It ensured that all applicants received consistent and accurate information.
• Speed: Botad improved the applicant experience by providing quick and relevant responses.

Clearly, this looks very enticing.

However, the flip side is more complex to solve:

• Data Quality: A single source of information is critical to ensuring data quality. Universities are complex ecosystems with much information posted by many individuals. Assuring a single source of truth across all web pages is a big challenge, and it might lead the bot to capture the wrong information.
• Problem-Solving: Working in Admissions implies guarding the gates while being welcoming. A fine line exists between rigor and sales, as competition is tough. Pressures on enrolment are constant. As every candidate has a different profile and needs, subtle differences in communication are critical. Knowing when to push or pull and when to let go is still a very human ability.
• Emotional Intelligence: AI has no emotions. It can learn to appear more emotional, but it's still being trained. Few university decisions are made rationally. Candidates evaluate how they are treated, how much they feel welcome, and how their needs are heard. An automated relationship with the bot from application to enrollment might not yield the desired outcomes.

... and, in summary, can bots create personalized experiences beyond mentioning the name?

Striking the Balance

Knowing how much to automate without losing the human touch is paramount for building trust. The right balance depends significantly on the type of institution, the program portfolio, and the complexity of the admissions process.

For a mass market portfolio, economies of scale are critical to operate. Here, a fully automated system from inquiry to enrollment makes total sense as the prospective student sees admissions, or however, it might be called in the future, as a transactional phase of their onboarding.

For boutique institutions aiming for prestige and ranking positions, automation can benefit their backend processes. However, extending automation and replacing human-to-human customer relations can be challenging. Would you want to purchase a Hermès bag from a vending machine?

Vinny's innovative approach has transformed the way her admissions office operates. By embracing AI, she has not only streamlined the process but also elevated the overall quality of communication with prospective students.

However, she also realized that the admissions office could not function without her human team. The team remained the core of the department and the starting point for prospective students to build trust and a sense of belonging to the institution.

Explore eduALTO 's workshops if you are facing challenges with your admissions process or student recruitment. For our consulting services, please DM me.