Humanizing Higher Ed Journeys with Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Right now, enrollment teams of all sizes are up against slipping enrollment numbers, team burnout, and increasingly complex student journeys. 

It seems that the only way to keep students’ attention is by doing away with generic messaging and speaking directly to students at every stage. If the messaging isn’t personalized, it comes across as inconsistent and irrelevant – and is unlikely to attract, retain, or convert students.

In other words, you have to humanize your enrollment funnel, which you can learn about in our new whitepaper, Humanize Your Enrollment Funnel: Attract, Nurture, and Convert Future Students.

As crucial as creating personalization and authenticity is, the truth is that it’s an overwhelming task for even the largest teams. On top of the sheer amount of data, you’re dealing with a massive volume of inquiries as well as staff and resource restrictions.

This is where artificial intelligence (AI), ironically, can help.

Oftentimes, enrollment teams are hesitant to use AI, thinking it can’t provide the kind of human touch your future students need. There’s also the worry that it will repel them entirely – after all, what’s worse than a chatbot that can’t help?

But when integrated correctly, AI can increase ROI for less work by helping teams of all sizes humanize their enrollment funnel with finer-tuned, more personalized touchpoints.

How AI can help higher ed enrollment efforts

Because most people assume it will lead to a less personal feel, implementing generative AI into your enrollment strategy might seem ironic.

But when you use an AI-infused solution like Unibuddy’s Assistant to enhance instead of replace your human-to-human interactions, it can help fine-tune each touchpoint by:

Providing valuable student insights

A good AI tool won’t replace your offline conversations, but it will provide you with the kind of data that will help you bolster the ones you’re having online.

After all, nearly three-quarters of enrollment teams say they have no insight into the thoughts and feelings of their prospective students. That means they’re creating student journeys blind – and that’s a problem.

Usually, it would take hours to sift through enough data to paint a clear-ish picture of who your students are. But with AI, you can get to the heart of each conversation and know exactly what matters in just seconds.

We’ve integrated OpenAI’s GPT “Large Language Model” into Unibuddy Chat and Unibuddy Community with a feature called Conversation Insights. 

Conversation Insights analyzes students’ conversations with your ambassadors and provides you with short, detailed summaries of each interaction.

Even though each summary is just a few sentences, the insight they provide is invaluable. 

You’ll immediately know about each student’s academic interests, why they’re on the enrollment journey, and the driving force behind their enrollment decision. The summaries can even be filtered by a student’s location, interests, and major.

Unibuddy also uses data to determine trending topics and provide relevant sample questions. Not only does this save your team precious time, but it also makes every student interaction more relevant.

That kind of data makes a world of difference in your recruiting strategy because it allows you to create an experience that’s more authentic and personalized than ever before, which matters most to current generations of students.

Read more: The Gen Z Journey to Higher Education

Simplifying automation in higher ed enrollment 

Successful automation programs don’t exist without data, and AI makes it easy for enrollment teams to use data to determine the triggers that should be followed up on.

In other words, it streamlines your team efforts to support the scalability of personalization. 

For instance, follow-up actions, such as an email marketing nurture campaign, can be automatically initiated based on near-real-time student decision data. 

Unibuddy also offers automatic matching features that pair students with student ambassadors who fit their criteria or interests on Unibuddy Chat.

Smaller enrollment teams will get more visibility into who their students are on a micro-level. They’ll be able to tell things like how likely they are to enroll and what’s motivating them. 

On the other hand, larger enrollment teams can use automation for personalized messaging tracks, such as audience clustering.

Answering questions quickly and effectively 

It’s only natural that students on their higher ed journey have several questions. Even when using a chat system, it can be labor-intensive trying to figure out which direction to point them in. 

That’s where a chatbot-type solution comes in handy.

But you can’t just throw a chatbot on your site and walk away, especially seeing as many chatbots aren’t built for higher ed enrollment and, more importantly, that 93% of students don’t like them. 

Instead, you need an AI element that can easily be integrated into your existing peer-to-peer chat system. 

That’s where a P2P, student-to-student, enrollment assistant like Unibuddy’s Assistant can help. 

An enrollment assistant reduces friction, stays up-to-date, and doesn’t require training. Even better, it gives students higher-quality answers more quickly than a classic chatbot and serves as the starting point between initial student interest and actual human interaction.

It can also help you capture more leads, understand how to nurture those leads, and provide tailored recommendations that engage and convert.

Read more: Are All AI-Infused Chatbots for Higher Ed Intelligent?

How enrollment assistants and classic chatbots differ

A classic chatbot is a robot that parrots human conversation but doesn’t actually lead to a meaningful human-to-human connection.

On the other hand, an enrollment like Assistant is an AI-powered, peer-to-peer program that doesn’t replace human conversation but acts as the jumping-off point to meaningful P2P interactions. 

Think of it as a triaging tool that fields even students’ most nuanced questions and knows exactly which resources and people to connect them with, whether an administrator or a current student. 

Even better, it’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and can provide immediate responses, even during the busiest times. 

It can also summarize, sort, and categorize the questions being asked, allowing you to personalize the experience even more. 

And, like all AI integrations, it offers the clustering and summary tools essential to sorting, categorizing, and using data to develop personalized touchpoints quickly.

Where many chatbots are a compromise; enrollment assistants, like Unibuddy’s Assistant, are a solution.

Note: Assistant is currently available only for pilot customers in the US and UK.

Read more: Can a Chatbot Improve our College and University Admissions?

What to look for in an AI tool 

Finding the right AI tool can be a game-changer in the fast-evolving landscape of higher education enrollment. But what should you be looking for?

A good AI tool should:

Complement your operations

Most AI solutions are touted as a done-for-you service. Sure, you can train them to personalize the student experience, determine which students are most likely to enroll, and even handle administrative duties, but there’s a lot that they can’t do for you.

It’s important to think of AI as a sidekick that enhances, not replaces, your team’s capabilities by making tasks easier and more efficient without sidelining the human element. 

Simply put, it should act as an assistant to rather than a substitute for your day-to-day operations. It should help your team figure out how to reach students more effectively with personalized messaging based on their preferences and needs, but not do it for them. 

Offer great insights

The greatest thing about AI is the valuable data insights you can glean from it.

A good edtech tool should give your team a clear idea of who your students are, what interests them, and what they need. You’ll easily be able to tell what their motivations are and which factors are going into their decision-making process.

Access to that kind of data is invaluable and empowers your team to make decisions that lead to more personalized, meaningful, and impactful efforts.

Integrate seamlessly

What you don’t want is a standalone solution that operates alone.

Instead, find one that integrates into your current CRM to ensure a cohesive workflow and allow your team to leverage the power of AI without disrupting an already-established process. 

At the end of the day, the tool you should choose should do for your team what an electric drill does for a construction worker: Make the work easier, faster, and more efficient without replacing the worker. 

When done right, using an AI-powered solution like Unibuddy for your enrollment efforts will change the game. But remember that you shouldn’t use AI to replace the human element – just enhance it.

To learn more about the importance of humanizing your enrollment funnel, including how to do it with the help of AI, check out our new whitepaper, Humanize Your Enrollment Funnel: Attract, Nurture, and Convert Future Students.