Educational Experience Now Includes Conversational Intelligence

With the rise of digital platforms, education is no longer confined to chalkboards, rowed benches and traditional classrooms. Over the past decade, and especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, the growth of online education has been unprecedented. While this type of learning is certainly here to stay, there is another digital channel that is rapidly gaining ground in the educational sector: conversational platforms.

People today are on conversational platforms to engage with their families, friends and businesses. Over the last five years, businesses have discovered that messaging is the way to connect with new generations, proving to be engaging and cost-effective, while improving the user experience overall. 

In Mexico, WhatsApp is the king of conversational channels, used by over 90% of the population on a daily basis for interactions between people and businesses with their customers. According to Meta, 88% of people prefer to be contacted by text message rather than speaking on the phone, which marks a clear change in consumer behavior in favor of conversational platforms.

For those of you who are not familiar with the different types of WhatsApp, let me break it down for you. There are three versions of WhatsApp: 

• WhatsApp Consumer: This version is the one we use on a daily basis to talk with our friends and family. It also allows consumers to interact with business profiles. People can download it for free from their favorite app store.

• WhatsApp Business: This version allows businesses to create a professional profile on WhatsApp to engage with their customers. Businesses can display information about their products, services, opening hours and can even automate messages. However, interactions at a larger scale are not possible; businesses have one-on-one conversations the same way they talk with people in the consumer version. You can also download this version from app stores.

• WhatsApp Business Platform: This version is specifically designed for businesses that wish to interact with their customers on a larger scale and that need to provide support to hundreds, or even thousands, of customers at the same time, without sacrificing quality of service. These profiles can only be created through Meta’s network of partners, like Blip, companies that are experts on business messaging and that develop conversational AI to transform a WhatsApp business profile into a highly engaging conversational channel.

At Blip, we call adding a “layer” of artificial intelligence an intelligent contact (chatbots powered by AI), capable of imitating human interactions automatically. If done correctly, the difference between interacting with intelligent contacts or actual human beings becomes practically seamless. 

WhatsApp for Education

For educational institutions, WhatsApp has become an indispensable tool for engaging with thousands of students, whether it is to provide information about courses, helping them with the onboarding process or keeping them engaged with the educational experience.

Integrating an intelligent contact into their digital experience helps schools, universities and postgraduate institutions: 

• Acquire new students via personalized outreach and helps them discover new courses according to their interests

• Automate student onboarding, from the registration and documentation phases to assigning learning guides and answering FAQs

• Send reminders, follow up on homework and send out rich media through conversational platforms

• Offer student support 24/7 without burning out educational staff

Apart from integrating WhatsApp to websites, educational institutions can also leverage social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to attract students by setting up a Click-to-WhatsApp campaign, which activates a clickable button on a Meta ad with a call to action that redirects students and prospects to a WhatsApp chat. This allows institutions to reach a broader audience and continue with a conversational experience, which is much more interactive, effective and engaging.

The Future of Conversational AI in Education

More and more, people are demanding new and improved ways to interact digitally with businesses. As new technologies emerge and as long as people wish to engage through conversations, we will surely see more educational institutions migrating their communication to conversational channels such as WhatsApp. At Blip, we’re glad to help them transform their student experience from beginning to end, ensuring a seamless, intuitive and immediate experience to support their marketing, sales and customer care strategies.