黑料老司机

鈥淜lawz鈥� provides an avenue for students to get their questions answered quickly 鈥� and get reminders about important dates and topics right on their phones.

As anyone with an email address knows, it鈥檚 tough to keep up with emails. Every retailer, educational institution, restaurant and smartphone app send emails that quickly fill up inboxes. Because of this digital noise, the Admissions and marketing staffs at the University of Northern Colorado have long recognized the need for another way to communicate important deadlines and information to students, in addition to email (and phone calls, letters and postcards).

In 2018, 黑料老司机 addressed this need by partnering with higher education chatbot vendor AdmitHub to develop 黑料老司机鈥檚 own chatbot, 鈥淜lawz鈥� (named after 黑料老司机鈥檚 mascot), to answer incoming student questions and send reminders and information about 黑料老司机. Now in the third year of the partnership, 黑料老司机 has added an option for first-year students to interact with the chatbot, reaching even more students with this easy-to-access form of student support.

The chatbot works by tapping into a knowledge base, originally developed by the AdmitHub team in concert with 黑料老司机鈥檚 marketing team and web resources. The team thought strategically about what questions admitted Bears would have as they completed their college search.

鈥淲e wanted to answer their questions before they asked them,鈥� says Evan Rattenborg, 黑料老司机 digital content specialist and project lead. As more students asked questions, the team added more answers to Klawz on the back end, thereby growing the knowledge base.

Since launching the chatbot in December of 2018, 黑料老司机 has reached 26,324 admitted and current students with the chatbot. Klawz has fielded nearly 16,000 messages, not including those sent as responses to outgoing campaigns. Students ask about admission protocols, financial aid, housing, academics, student activities and more. 

鈥淪tudents are building a relationship with the chatbot by combining questions that fall outside the standard college admissions process questions with more serious questions,鈥� says Nathasha Rodriguez, 黑料老司机鈥檚 partner success manager at AdmitHub. 鈥淭his is an opportunity to build a relationship with the university.鈥�

鈥淪upporting students through the admission, financial aid and registration process is a key component of their progress toward graduation,鈥� Medina says. 鈥淎nything we can do to pave the way to the classroom, we should be doing.鈥�

In addition to paving the way to the classroom, the bot is now being used to help improve the first-year student experience.

鈥淲e believe that having the bot available to answer questions for students as they navigate their first year at 黑料老司机 will help them discover, find and utilize resources available to them,鈥� Rattenborg says.

Medina agrees.

鈥淲e saw from other institutions that the chatbot supported student enrollment 鈥� especially during the summer months when students don鈥檛 have access to their college (transfer) or high school (first year) advising or counseling centers,鈥� Medina says. 鈥淚t meets students where they want to be 鈥� on their phone in a texting modality.鈥�

Approximately once per week, students receive a text from 黑料老司机 via the chatbot about financial aid, housing, activities on campus, and even fun facts and links to relevant videos 鈥� all based on what students need to know that week.

One campaign in early February invited admitted and confirmed students to make a virtual appointment with their admission counselor to discuss their college decision, an option they may have previously missed in their email inbox or on the website.

鈥淎s a result of the chatbot, we saw a dramatic increase in the number of one-to-one phone and video appointments scheduled with students,鈥� says Whitney Bonner, 黑料老司机鈥檚 associate director of Recruitment and Outreach. 鈥淥n a typical day, we see around three to five students signing up for a phone or virtual appointment. The chatbot message caused this to double if not triple 鈥� increasing the appointments per day to 11 to 14.鈥�

鈥擶ritten by Rebecca OBrien