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10 Reasons Why Your Advising Team Needs a Chatbot

To put it simply, a chatbot is a piece of software that can have a conversation with a student online.

Let’s take a look at ten different reasons why your academic advising team could really benefit from chatbot technology.

Academic advising teams everywhere all seem to have the same problems. From an increasing  number of students to support, a lack of high tech / high touch technology and the same repetitive questions asked over and over again; for example ‘Who is my advisor?’, or ‘How many credits do I need to graduate?’. Time is limited – so, what’s the solution?

Here are the 10 reasons your team needs a chatbot:

1) Chatbots save time!
Chatbots can free up some of your time by responding to inquiries instantly, with no human intervention.

2) Chatbots increase student engagement
Chatbots give your students what they want, when they want – information on demand!

3) Chatbots are always learning
Just like a new advisor on your team, chatbots get better with experience. The bot learns over time, adding to its knowledge base and accurately answering more and more queries as it develops.

4) If the chatbot can’t help, humans can!
When a human is required, chatbots ensure that messages don’t fall through the cracks. Chatbots will route conversations to advisors whenever necessary.

5) Chatbots never sleep
A chatbot seamlessly provides 24/7 x 365 support.

6) Chatbots handle repetitive questions
During orientation, and throughout the year, advisors get asked many questions on a daily basis, hundreds of which are identical. Chatbots can help automate responses to all those repetitive inquiries, leaving your advising team with time for the more complex tasks.

7) Chatbots can help you do more with less
No matter how many advisors are part of your team, there will typically be a greater need from your students that can be supported in terms of information and resources. Chatbots can converse with multiple students at once, answering introductory questions and providing consistency across all responses. 

8) The more engaged students are with their institution, the more successful they will be
A chatbot will make it easier for students to quickly access information on their courses, registration deadlines and important upcoming events.

9) Chatbots gather large amounts of data from their interactions with students
This is extremely useful in understanding student behavior and provides real value for advising teams when making changes and improvements to the way they engage with students.

10) Chatbots meet students where they are
Unique to your institution, a chatbot can be customized so the personality of the bot can match that of your advising team, in a mobile friendly interface that can be accessed via your website, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and/or text message.

Advisors are tasked with balancing high-quality conversations with an ever-increasing number of advisees. A chatbot, in partnership with advisors, helps to manage overall engagement to deliver a richer, more holistic advising experience for students.

To find out how Georgia Southern University trained and deployed their GeckoEngage chatbot in just one week and resolved 96% of inquiries in the first 30 days view our case study 

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