Students of gen Y and Z are on the fast lane of social living and value fast and relevant information sharing. This is one of the main reasons why universities need to communicate via all the preferred channels of their students.
Webcare at universities is of great importance, both for the university as for its students. The faculty needs to be accessible, and preferably at flexible hours, to provide quick answers to frequently asked questions.
Questions from students vary from topics about opening hours, teaching material, exams, open days, and holidays. You name it, a student will ask it. The variety of questions come from existing and new students from different countries. But all with the same expectations; receiving a quick reply to an obvious answer on their preferred mobile channel.
Eindhoven University of Technology (NL) is already taking the fast lane approach. The University chose WhatsApp as a service channel in 2017. Back then their webcare wasn’t really structured and the University served their students via different communication channels, webcare was a side task divided over different colleagues. As you can imagine, an intensive and time consuming job.
Since the summer of 2018 the Eindhoven University of Technology switched to a more structured webcare team. They choose Email and WhatsApp as the preferred channels to provide quality service. WhatsApp has been chosen as a service channel for the very simple reason that the channel is highly adopted by the majority of their (potential) students, both Dutch and foreign students.
Today, the University is available workdays from 7 AM till 7 PM. All questions or requests are being handled by a team of 10 agents, students in this case, who manage every conversation with our partner Coosto.
With Coosto all conversations can be managed quickly and efficiently. This ensures they keep providing quality service with more happy students as a result.
With eight WhatsApp profiles, Inholland University of Applied Sciences also embraced the use of WhatsApp as a service channel and Coosto as conversations manager.
When Covid-19 loomed up all planned events needed to be cancelled. Their open house was born, and WhatsApp seemed an appropriate solution for the first online open house of Inholland. WhatsApp was used as the preferred channel to get frequently asked questions answered. Instead of only push information, WhatsApp enabled Inholland University of Applied Sciences to start the conversation in a pleasant and convenient way.
With new registrations, the unique online event was very successful. Due to this success, Inholland University of Applied Sciences is now exploring new ways to optimize the use of WhatsApp to provide a world-class online service.
The purpose of WhatsApp for universities is to provide accurate and quick service all whilst offering support on the preferred channel of their students.
Are you seeking a mobile messaging channel to start the conversation with your students? We’ll be happy to provide you with access to multichannel messaging with you and your target audience (WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, Apple Messages for Business, and more).
Do you want to support your students in the most convenient and efficient way possible? Adopt a mobile messaging channel in your service strategy and gain more well-informed happy students. Contact us now or visit our Mobile Service Cloud page for more information!
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