3 Areas of Focus to Elevate the Student Experience

1. Contact Center Solutions Are Key Tools for CX

Contact centers are more than typical call centers; they include an area with a “density of interactions,” such as a billing team, nursing station in a hospital or admissions advisers in higher education, says Martin.

Communication Platform as a Service solutions such as Webex Connect can elevate call centers with artificial intelligence, voice bots, and improved audio and video clarity, says Anurag Dhingra, senior vice president/general manager of Cisco Collaboration. Interactions can be automated using natural language programming and natural language understanding.

CPaaS platforms can also remove background noise (such as other voices or ruffling papers) during support calls, Dhingra says. Webex offers this feature on its meetings platform and in its contact center software.

2. Contextual Data Analytics Enhances CX

Contextual data analytics enables personalized experiences in which an agent receives detailed information specific to a customer. For example, the agent might know which airport customers typically fly out of, that they usually do not check a bag and what meals they prefer, Dhingra says. Such information can make for easier communication when customers want to change a flight.

Customer service requests, especially those from students, should be resolved proactively and quickly, Dhingra adds. That means not putting callers on hold or making them repeat themselves. The contextual information that data analytics tools offer can help avoid unneeded conversation.

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“I think that data fabric and the sharing of all the metadata associated with communications helps make an organization much more efficient,” Martin says.

Customer relationship management tools can also provide context for customer calls, according to Martin.

Dhingra adds, “The agent might know the customer’s most recent purchase. The agent might know there was a delay in the order. All of those things, from a data analytics point of view, can help deliver a better personalized experience.”

3. How AI and Automation Improve CX 

When universities use manual processes for a range of tasks, students, faculty and staff can become frustrated by slow workflows that produce a greater number of errors. Automation can improve productivity and reduce the risk of mistakes.

“When you talk to a human, that human will have more information to personalize the experience for you, because the AI solution can look at previous interactions, see patterns, predict what somebody might be reaching out about and equip the agent to deliver a better experience,” Dhingra says.

AI tools can now listen in on voice and digital interactions, observe what is being typed and provide suggestions to agents on next steps, Martin says.

KEEP READING: How AI-driven analytics help The Ohio State University manage stadium crowds.

Although students and other users may at times get frustrated with bots and request a live agent, bots are becoming more efficient at helping with tasks that cause agent burnout. To improve CX, organizations must hand off calls to a human quickly if the user has spent several minutes with a bot, Martin says.

With the emergence of generative AI, contact center solutions can now add empathy to an interaction, according to Martin. For instance, if a gen AI tool for a bicycle brand learned that a student had been in a bike accident, it might say to the student, “We’re sorry to hear you were in a crash. Are you OK?” Martin says.

As gen AI emerges to elevate CX, don’t expect it to replace humans altogether, Martin adds: “There's always going to be a place for a human in the system, but how efficient we can make that human, how productive, how happy we can make that customer, those are the questions to answer.”