This is another common misconception when it comes to chatbots. What is the need for a chatbot if you have all the information on your website already?
There are a couple of points to mention here. The first one is: higher education websites are vast. Huge. It’s therefore tricky to know that all of the information on your site is up-to-date. When you build a chatbot, you’re the one populating it with questions and answers. You can therefore be confident that all the information on the bot is 100% accurate and up-to-date.
The second point is this. This generation of students expects instant responses. The last thing they want to do is mine through a website looking for the answer they need. A chatbot can direct them to the resources they need, quickly, and offer them the customer service they expect.
As one of our Gecko clients points out in our recent customer story, students may not even know what questions to ask, particularly if they’re a first-generation student. A chatbot can find out more about them, direct them to helpful resources, and follow up with further information and support.
The biggest thing to ask yourself is whether your institution is providing an experience that is positive and meets students where they are at from a speed of response requirement. That’s your starting point.