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Livehelp for the Education Industry – Case study
(Note: This case study uses Rai University as an example for the purposes of explanation)

Nikhil has just finished his graduation and is looking for further education opportunities. He knows that he wants to do an MBA course. Nikhil has been going through various educational guides and the newspaper advertisements of various institutes talking about different courses. He is highly concerned about the educational standard, placements, campus and infrastructure, and faculty of the college. He had also aware of the false claims that various institutes make and so he wants to make sure that his decision about the course and the college is right. There are so many colleges and course options (within MBA) available that he is confused. He is overwhelmed with the amount of information available. He visits a couple of websites everyday as a part of his search for the right college and the right course. Nikhil has heard a lot about Rai University from his friends and also through the paper advertisements. Nikhil is curious about Rai University and visits their website for more information

Fig 1. The home page of Rai University website

The website has an extensive structure. There are several sections on the main page as revealed by the above snapshot: Know us better, International edge, Scholarships and awards, Admissions, Placements, Study@Rai University , Residence Life, Study abroad. Apart from these categories of information, there is another set of categories: campuses, colleges, contact us and search. There is also an A to Z of courses. Overall the website has more than 100 pages. The complexity of navigation is high due to the large amount of information available.

Nikhil is finding it difficult to find his way around. He has spent quite some time on the website but cannot find the correct pages quickly. For instance, in order to find out relevant information about MBA courses the following pages need to be navigated

Fig 2. First accessed page

Fig 3. Second accessed page

Fig 4. Third accessed page

Fig 5. Fourth accessed page

Thus Nikhil reached the relevant information after traversing 5 pages. A couple of times he misunderstood the structure and accessed the wrong pages. Adding the erroneous accesses, it can be said that Nikhil had to wait for at least 10 html pages to open before he got to the relevant information.

Once he got the relevant page, he realized that there are several MBA courses available –MBA in human resource management, MBA in marketing management, MBA in accounting and finance, MBA in information technology, MBA with media studies, MBA with Entrepreneurship and so on. He is surprised to see so many options of MBA courses. Unfortunately he does not even clearly understand the differences in these courses. For example – he does not understand the difference between MBA in business and marketing and MBA in marketing management. He does not know whom to ask. He calls up some of his friends and acquaintances, but every one is just making guesses. He is not able to come to any conclusion on the basis of this information.

Apart from choosing his subject he also has to choose whether he wants to do a degree course or a diploma course. Once again, Nikhil is not aware of the exact differences between a degree course and a diploma course. He is bored and irritated thinking about the course. So, He postpones his decision making as far as the course is concerned and decides to find out about other issues such as how to get admission into the university etc.

Fig 6. Admissions page

He goes to the admission section on the website. While reading he encounters several terms such as GAT, SAT etc, which is hasn’t heard of before. From the context he can make out that these are the names of some examinations, but nothing more than that. He searches these terms in google – his favorite search engine. The next 30-40 minutes he is occupied finding out what these exams are like. He looses focus and direction. He is not sure which among the several exams he needs to take for an MBA course. Furthermore, he does not know how to go about taking these exams.

There are several other important issues in his mind such as hostel accommodation and fees, which he needs to find out about. He has so many questions on his mind that he does not know where to start from. When he visits the relevant pages, either he is confused about something due to overwhelming amounts of information or he is not able to understand the terminology.

Nikhil is getting quite bored with all this and plans to come back online sometime later. As a result, inspite of spending a lot of time on the website, he hasn’t been able to garner any concrete information that would help him proceed with this study plans.

Deploying LivehelpGenie on your website can solve these problems. Using LivehelpGenie as a navigation aid can make your visitor’s online experience much more fruitful. It makes life easy for the customer helps your customers navigate your web site by "co-browsing" with them. LivehelpGenie allows agents to "push" specific web pages to the visitors and help guide them through your site, locate the requested information and complete on-line forms or any other applications that will.

Fig 7. Snapshot of the website with LivehelpGenie – proactive initiation of chat

The customer care executive initiates a chat hence offering help to Nikhil. Nikhil accepts the chat and a sample conversation is given below.

Fig 7. Sample chat

           

Thus we see that within a conversation of not more than 5 minutes, he got the information that he was looking for. Sometimes the visitors (usually students) may not be very clear about what course they want to apply for. They might have several doubts and apprehensions in their mind. For instance: They may not know the difference between a diploma and a degree course, they may not know what exactly a course would include, they may not know how much time they’ll have to put in once they join. Students are usually keen on finding out all this information. They might talk to their friends to find out, or they might email on certain university email addresses specified on the website, or sometimes their questions might remain unanswered. Through LivehelpGenie you can help your visitors clarify their doubts and make up their mind.

Then the above scenario the customer support agent initiated the chat and Nikhil accepted the chat. LivehelpGenie also allows the visitor to trigger a chat with the customer support agents. Nikhil could also initiate a chat with customer support agent by clicking on the “chat with us” icon on the website of Rai University.

Fig 8. Snapshot of the website with LivehelpGenie logo

Now once he has got admission into the university, Nikhil is looking for hostel accommodation and so he visits the website. The operator who initially accepted the chat and told Nikhil about the courses does not have the answer to these questions which fall in a different domain. In this scenario LivehelpGenie allows the operator to transfer the chat to another department.

Fig 9. Sample chat

                                                 

Consider the above case when a student wants to search for appropriate accommodation and book it. In the absence of a chat based support, there would be typically a few back and forth exchanges of information. First the student would send some inquiry emails. Once he has the information, he would make a selection and mail the authorities to check for availability. Once the availability is confirmed, he would confirm the booking. In this process of information exchange both the student and the university authorities lose time. The cost of communication is also high.

LivehelpGenie would form an excellent alternative. Communication process can be shortened to a great extent. LivehelpGenie enables you to provide quick and affordable customer service on your website. Customer support could be provided round the clock. You could provide customer support in three shifts – 8 am to 4 pm, 4 pm to 12 midnight, 12 midnight to 8 am. This would ensure that your visitors are being attended to all the time. However, you might choose to provide chat based customer service for lesser than three shifts. For the other shifts we have an email based support system.

Fig 10. Snapshot of the website with LivehelpGenie logo – email customer support

Fig 12. Snapshot of the email support system window

           

Our representative is currently unavailable. Kindly leave your email id and your query and we will get back to you at the earliest.
Subject
E-mail:
Query:	Please enter your query here.

So we see that all through the process of decision making, taking admission into Rai University and joining them, LivehelpGenie made life easier for Nikhil. LivehelpGenie is the most effective and affordable way to provide service to your visitors on your website. LivehelpGenie represents your ability to respond to customer inquiries in real-time while the customer is navigating your web site.  A customer support team receives inquiries from the visitors of the website and responds to them online then and there.