Cardiff Metropolitan University handled over 100 conversations out-of-hours in just one week, thanks to its Gecko chatbot. Consequently, it can now build stronger relationships with potential international students in other time zones.
Situated in the buzzy Welsh capital and one of the most affordable student cities in the UK, Cardiff Metropolitan University attracts undergraduates and post-graduates from around the world. To continue attracting this diverse student population and ensuring that its existing students are making the most of everything it has to offer, since 2022, Cardiff Metropolitan University has increasingly turned to Gecko. Most recently, finding success with the Gecko chatbot and Whatsapp services.
We grabbed some time with Gareth Huish, admissions and course enquiries team leader at Cardiff Metropolitan University, to find out how Cardiff Met, as it’s known, has developed such a strong relationship with Gecko.
“The problem we had before we deployed Gecko,” explains Gareth, “is we had a very basic system that wasn’t good for reporting and didn’t have a great support network behind it.”
Following good testimonials and recommendations from other universities, Cardiff Met started to look into Gecko and found that it ticked all its boxes. “We didn’t need to look elsewhere,” says Gareth. “As soon as we began using Gecko we started to report and gain insight into what was working and what wasn’t and the support from the Gecko team has been amazing. And, because we have more tools at our disposal, we can now really follow and optimize the student journey.”
Cardiff Met added Gecko’s WhatsApp service and its chatbot over the summer of 2024 and Gareth is now trying to learn how prospective and current students are engaging with these and their live chat offering. For this, he draws on the data that Gecko collects, from which he can create useful reports on all sorts of variables, from what time of day these services are busiest to whether people prefer the live chat experience to WhatsApp.
During office hours, students are encouraged to get in contact using WhatsApp or live chat and Gareth’s team of three man all the shared inboxes. “With Gecko, it’s very easy to go through multiple live chats at once and it’s second nature now,” he says. “When we leave the office, that’s when Dai the Dragon, as the bot is known, kicks in and starts earning his keep.
Each morning one team member spends about 20 minutes following up on the traffic that the bot hasn’t been able to answer and a little longer during busier times, like clearing and when people are looking for accommodation.
As with any new tech, it takes a while to really feel like you are making the most of everything it has to offer and Gareth is getting to that point.
“Now, we are making sure that all the information is right on the bot and creating specific messaging for particular use cases,” he says. “Previously, if someone logged on at 6pm to find out where we had course vacancies in clearing, they would have had no way of finding out. Now they say to the chatbot, ‘I want to apply through clearing’ and they’re sent to the course vacancies and the application form. It’s a much easier path to get applications into us at any time of day.”
Getting people where they need to be faster, is one of the biggest positives of the bot for Gareth. In the future, he is also keen to look at integrating Gecko’s ChatGPT function into the chatbot, but as Cardiff Met is due a website upgrade, he wants to wait until that new student portal is ready before moving to the next stage. “I don’t want it to be pulling up out-of-date information that might be languishing on the site at the moment and sending out the wrong messaging, but that will be something for the future,” he says. “One step at a time.”
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