Remember the days when you would send an email to your college and wait for days only to get a simple answer? Sounds familiar? If you’ve gone through such a situation, this blog can be your best friend.
Today, the Gen Z students are digital dynamos. They are tech-savvy, quick, and have the patience of a goldfish, especially when waiting for answers. Since students now need instant gratification, higher education institutions need to catch up with this to develop a good relationship with them.
A study published in the Springer Journal revealed that students who use the live chat feature for academic purposes are more satisfied. They felt more heard and connected to their educators. According to a 2019 Salesforce Connected Student Report, 66% of students expect real-time communication from institutions.
So, live chats in education are no longer a fancy add-on. Instead, they are a necessity now. To bridge the gap between your educational institutions and your students, let’s jump into the top 12 benefits of live chats in this blog.
What are live chats in higher education?
Live chat is the little bubble that says ‘Hi! Need any help?’ when you enter any website. In the higher education sector, live chats are much more than widgets. It functions like a virtual front desk 24/7, always ready to handle all student queries related to academics and the university.
It is a text-based communication tool that offers real-time information. You can integrate the live chat into your student portals, college admission pages, websites, and all social channels. To make this live chat interesting, some of them also have AI integration, meaning these live chats understand your intent and respond to questions accordingly. What’s more, it is their humanized way of answering questions. They don’t sound like robots.
Here’s what it looks like in action:
- A prospective student lands on the admissions page at 11:45 PM and wants to know the eligibility criteria live chat answers on the spot.
- An international student is confused about visa timelines live chat provides an answer in their preferred language.
- A current student forgets their exam hall live chat has the schedule pulled up in seconds.
No more lost-in-email replies. No more “Call us during office hours.” Live chat brings support right where students are, exactly when needed. It’s casual, instant, and feels more like texting a helpful friend than filing a support ticket. And in a world where attention spans are shorter than a TikTok, that’s precisely what students want.
Top 12 benefits of live chat in higher education
Let’s talk about how live chat works in an educational institution setup. Live chats are much more than being virtual assistants. They streamline support, build student trust, and guide them throughout the academic program.
Here are the top 12 reasons that make live chats an indispensable part of higher educational institutions:
1. Enhancing student engagement and recruitment
Most students do not fill out an application form on their first visit. Instead, they look into the courses, browse the campus photos, check the payment process, and then consider making a decision. Here, if the chatbot for higher education or university can drop a friendly query like “Got questions?”, it will turn passive scrollers into active conversations.
Here’s how it works:
- Live chats break the ice between students and the university. Students get a steady digital experience while solving their queries.
- Live chats give clarity to students. This helps them to make more confident decisions.
- Helping students with a quick chat at the right time can reduce bounce rates and increase enrolment rates.
2. Improving support services and efficiency
Students never stop asking questions. The query flood gates open during the admission seasons, exam times, and when deadlines knock on the students' doors. This leads to a chaotic situation as institutions must employ more people to address these issues. Here, live chats do more than human agents.
Here’s how live chats outshine human agents:
- Live chats juggle multiple queries simultaneously. Unlike staff members, they can address several questions, leading to shorter waiting times.
- Live chats take care of automated answers to common, repetitive queries. This prevents staff members from burning out and lets them focus on more essential activities.
- Live chats answer questions relevantly based on specific keywords. This offers efficient and fast responses without any annoyance.
3. Boosting academic help-seeking and autonomy
Even though most students have academic confusion, they do not ask their educators in class. They would rather Google it than sound dumb in front of their peers. This is where live chats swoop in. As students get to connect with these live chats individually, it creates a safe space. The students feel less pressured. Live chats are also a game-changer for hybrid and remote learners.
Here’s how live chats help in more student engagement:
- Live chats allow students to ask questions without fearing judgment or embarrassment.
- Since live chats fit the students' schedule, they can reach out whenever confusion strikes them.
- Instead of staying stuck. Live chats encourage students to take charge of their academic career. They provide instant replies so students don’t have to break the momentum.
4. Ensuring accessibility and inclusivity
Every international student has to go through an arduous journey. They are in a new country, exploring new rules and regulations. In such a confusing situation, things get even worse when they deal with a support system that’s either unreachable or not available. This is where the live chats step in. They offer multilingual and communicative support irrespective of time zones. In short, live chats make global education more local.
Here’s how live chats bring in more inclusivity and accessibility:
- Live chats help international students get help anytime, as these live chats operate 24/7.
- Most live chats now come with a built-in translation feature. If the student is Chinese or Spanish, the live chat can respond to them while breaking language barriers.
- Since live chat offers real-time clarity, it helps international students resolve their queries without confusion.
5. Building hybrid support teams with AI
Not only does live chat offer faster support, but it also offers fairer support. In a university, students come from a variety of backgrounds. Accessibility matters. These live chats are built to provide accessibility. This means students who find traditional methods complicated can resolve their issues through live chats.
Here’s how live chats build a hybrid support system to offer more inclusivity:
- Generally, live chats have tools like keyboard navigation, text-to-speech and vice versa, screen reader compatibility, etc. All of these help physically challenged students interact comfortably.
- Not all students feel comfortable asking questions openly. Here, live chats reduce communication anxiety and social pressure for the students.
- The live chat tools offer automatic language translation to avoid miscommunication and delays.
6. Monitoring live chat effectiveness through data
Think of the AI-powered live chat as your virtual assistant who’s always present. It gives you easy access to university information for students 24/7. These bots gather student information while communicating with them in the chats. Later, the university administrators can collect this data and get insights.
This is how live chats help in monitoring students:
- Bots know when to step aside. When a student asks something emotional, the live chat escalates the student to a human agent.
- The presence of AI in live chats allows it to handle the bulk of repetitive queries.
- The live chat monitors the bot's effectiveness, giving universities detailed insight into its performance.
7. Supporting financial aid and administrative processes
Let’s be honest. Most student queries are basic and boring. But for every student, they are essential. Students want to know the fee structure, payment method, admission process, eligibility criteria, and deadlines. Live chats handle all these in seconds. Gone are the days of emails. These live chats help students with answers that make them take the right action.
Here’s how live chats support administrative processes:
- The students get answers immediately. This means they don’t have to wait in long queues.
- Live chats prevent front desk flooding. Since live chats have become the point of contact for students, staff members get more time to focus on other issues.
- Live chats suggest financial aid and grants to students only after understanding their academic background.
8. Driving cross-departmental collaboration
Students simply want answers. However, asking a question in a university often creates a ruckus, as most people push you from one department to another. This way, the students get messed up and their questions remain unanswered. This is where live chats come in. They serve as the connector between the university and the student and offer seamless support.
Here’s how it helps:
- Live chats give the perfect direction to students. They prevent guesswork and guide students in a personalized format.
- Some chatbots offer a unified dashboard for live chats. This solves issues that overlap different areas.
- Live chats kill the email game. Instead of forwarding messages, these live chats jump in immediately and respond accordingly.
9. Reducing no-show rates for events and appointments
When there’s an event, students set reminders and forget. They miss out on workshops, exhibitions, campus placements, and more, not because they don’t care, but because their life are chaotic. This is where live chat outshines every other solution. It sends timely notifications to students. Besides, these live chats add a personal touch to act like humans.
This is how live chats reduce no-shows:
- Live chats ping students with messages that feel like human conversations. These are hard to ignore and do not get lost.
- Instead of using any scheduling link, students can directly communicate in the live chat without any friction.
- With fewer no-shows, staff members use their time more efficiently. They can plan better and devote less time to chasing people.
10. Fostering continuous student lifecycle communication
Live chats offer long-term success to higher education institutions. Although most tools focus on solving student problems, live chats stick around with them throughout. They function more like a digital companion that makes students feel heard, understood, and supported. Such consistency also leads to more student enrolment, retention, and engagement of the alumni.
This is how live chats build relationships:
- Since live chats give quick responses, this builds trust and makes the institution approachable.
- When live chats proactively check in on students consistently, it builds a sense of loyalty. The students also feel remembered.
- Live chat support university alumni with upskilling options, career services, and donation queries.
11. Improving mental health and wellness support
Students find it embarrassing to ask for help, especially when it’s related to their mental health. The poor mental condition of the students occurs because they are bombarded with meeting too many deadlines, personal struggles, and the pressure of keeping it all together. Conveying all of this to a counselor can be challenging.
This is where live chat plays a pivotal role:
- Live chats reduce emotional distancing. The students can simply type their feelings; the live chat will suggest counselors.
- Many live chats offer anonymity modes where students can share their struggles without revealing their identity.
- Mental issues don’t follow any business hours. To address them and help students in the middle of the night, live chats are available 24/7.
12. Enabling proactive communication and nudging
Students miss out on a lot of things. Emails get ignored, texts get buried, and no one’s answering unknown calls these days. This is where live chats come in like a breath of fresh air. The live chats send notifications and reminders so students can pay attention to the necessary occasions at the right time.
The live chats can help in this way:
- Live chats pop up right where the students are browsing. They can’t miss these notifications.
- Live chats note the students’ progress and nudge them with quick, tailored responses to make them take action.
- Since the live chats send shorter alerts, students are likelier to click on those.
How can the live chat feature of Copilot.live help?
By now, you’re convinced that live chat is the future. But if setting up one makes your team sweat, Copilot.live has your back. Not only does it give you a live chat and an all-in-one CRM platform with complete engagement to support students and the whole workflow of a university, but From the first click as a prospective student to understanding the examination schedule of the final semester, Copilot.live allows you to create intelligent conversations. Later, the live chat of Copilot.live analyzes these conversations to give insights about students to the university.
With Copilot.live, you don’t get automation that’s robotic and dashboards that confuse you. Instead, here’s what the live chats of Copilot.live is all about:
- Copilot.live has a unified dashboard that lets you view, reply to, and track every student interaction. The dashboard has all personalisation options to create a customized live chat that reflects your university’s personality.
- Copilot.live remembers student names and personal data. This means every student feels heard and understood when interacting in the live chat. However, the message credit depends on the pricing plans.
- The Copilot live chat feature helps get things done and keeps students on the right track. Copilot.live nudges students with reminders and notifications proactively at the right time.
- Copilot.live provides intelligent analytics to help you gain insights into the performance of the live chat feature. It assesses parameters like response time, engagement pattern, and students' actual pain points.
- The Copilot.live chat feature is perfect for higher education institutions, as they have to wear ten hats simultaneously. The setup of the live chat is simple, but the impact is more significant.
Future of live chats in the education section
The evolution of live chats has just begun. With the growing demand for a digital-first approach, the higher education sector is leaning towards more tech developments that listen, learn, and respond like humans. Here are some future trends in higher education live chats that can boost and streamline workflows:
- AI-powered personalisation will go mainstream: No more generic replies. Future chatbots will use the live chat feature to pull data from student profiles and give spot-on responses.
- Multilingual and voice-enabled chat will expand reach: Typing messages takes time, and students don’t prefer this. However, with voice-enabled live chats, students can simply provide the command and get the help they need.
- Predictive analytics will enable early interventions: Now, AI live chats will read between the lines. They will scan the tone, language, and communication speed to determine if the student is overwhelmed.
- Integration with innovative campus systems will deepen: Live chats will be everywhere. Students can connect with these live chats on different channels with in-depth integration.
Conclusion
So, let’s cut to the chase. Live chats are the new frontline that offers a better student experience. Now, Gen Z lives in a world where they can do everything with just a few clicks. So, why would they send emails or write long letters to get their academic queries solved? With live chats, your higher education institutions feel more human.
They do a lot of repetitive tasks and take away the workload from the human agents. Besides, a sense of trust and reliability automatically develops when students feel heard, understood, and valued. So, the live chats are a retention-boosting and trust-building engine. If you’re not using it now, you’re losing students to your competitors.
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