At ElementX, we embarked on an exciting collaboration with the University of Waikato to tackle the challenges faced by their busy Student Centre. The University of Waikato has campuses in Hamilton, Tauranga and China with a student population of over 13,000.
The university was keen to undertake a proof of concept to understand how Virtual Assistant technology would support the handling of the high volume of enquiries, both in person and via phone or email. It became clear that a localised fix wouldn't suffice, as other divisions within the university fielded their own questions through various channels.
The team sought innovative solutions to create a more agile and responsive support structure; one that boosted efficiency and enhanced the overall support experience for students. The partnership centered around the implementation of a powerful Virtual Assistant, leveraging advancements in new Generative AI technology.
Over the three months of the project we worked closely with the university to ensure a successful outcome. The deployment went smoothly: team members received comprehensive training to seamlessly collaborate with the Virtual Assistant, and a robust feedback mechanism was established to continuously enhance the Virtual Assistant's performance, ensuring its adaptability to the evolving needs of the university. These early stages of our partnership signaled a promising future, where technology and human expertise combined to elevate the support experience at the University of Waikato.
The Virtual Assistant we implemented is a conversational agent capable of drawing information from identified locations to construct answers to a myriad of student queries. This cutting-edge technology is equipped with Natural Language Processing, allowing it to integrate into the support structure and support the work of Student Centre staff. Not only is this Virtual Assistant effective in disseminating information, but it also possesses the ability to learn and evolve, thus improving the quality of the responses over time.
The first step in implementing the Virtual Assistant was establishing a robust knowledge base. This foundational element acts as the source from where our Virtual Assistant retrieves relevant information to provide accurate responses to user queries. To further provide users with accurate and up-to-date information, it's essential to crawl and integrate the relevant websites into the database. In the case of the University of Waikato, this involved crawling not only their own website but also external websites necessary for comprehensive support.
Deploying the Virtual Assistant solution in ElementX's secure cloud environment and making it readily available to the University of Waikato team was crucial for rapid adoption. By leveraging cloud deployment, they could benefit from scalability to adapt to growing demands, reliability for uninterrupted service, and accessibility; allowing support teams to access the Virtual Assistant from any location.
To maximise the effectiveness of an AI-powered Virtual Assistant, proper training and onboarding are paramount. In the case of the University of Waikato, ElementX worked closely with the Student Centre team to ensure they were equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively utilise the Virtual Assistant. This comprehensive training empowered the team to make the most of the technology, optimising support processes and improving the overall user experience.
Collecting user feedback and training data is an ongoing process that plays a vital role in refining the Virtual Assistant's performance. By monitoring feedback, whether through the use of a thumbs-up/down button or other metrics, organisations can gather insights into user satisfaction and areas for improvement. This data-driven approach allows for continuous training and fine-tuning of the system, ensuring that the Virtual Assistant remains relevant and valuable to users.
"The ElementX team were great to work with and highly responsive. Feedback given was actioned immediately and the team could see progress immediately."
Tricia Finn, Director of Student Systems and Administration
Improved Sustainability
Some Student Centres experience frequent turnover due to their student-held positions, necessitating the constant recruitment and training of new staff members, which can be costly and take up to 12 months to reach full operational capacity. The Virtual Assistant has the capacity to provide a cost-effective solution to preserve and expand institutional knowledge.
Consistent Answers
The Virtual Assistant plays a vital role in ensuring consistency in responses. This consistency is due to its robust institutional knowledge base, and not only boosts the efficiency of the support system but also enhances the overall user experience by providing reliable and uniform information to all enquiries.
Speed and Agility
At an organisational level, the Virtual Assistant demonstrated exceptional speed and agility. It swiftly collects and processes information from both internal and external websites, delivering prompt and accurate responses to student queries. This efficiency enhanced the Student Centre’s ability to handle many enquiries effectively.
Powerful Examples
The Virtual Assistant displayed its versatility by effectively addressing a wide range of both simple and complex queries from students. There is a case of the Virtual Assistant comprehending a graduation-related query, providing multiple answers based on website information alone. Another compelling example involves the Virtual Assistant answering a question about the University of Waikato’s Computer Science program and converting the response into an email that can be directly sent to the student.
Without feedback there would be no improvement and the Virtual Assistant garnered valuable insights from users. While the tool’s satisfaction rating set a strong foundation, we identified a need for stronger integration to provide more detailed, specific answers, which can be achieved through further iteration and development. Overall, the University of Waikato team expressed satisfaction with the productivity gains achieved and recognised the potential for further integration and features, including multilingual capabilities, additional domain knowledge and Tier 0 support.
