Short-Term Chat Enhancements Open Chat to All Users Note: The project is a short-term plan (Phase 1) to get the chat functionality open to more users. There is opportunity (Phase 2) to explore other vendors and follow-up with LivePerson regarding enhanced functionality, a SalesForce plug-in, etc. that will be explored in the future as a separate longer-tailed initiative in conjunction with a website revamp.
Primary Stakeholders: KK, ES, KS, AC, GG, KM Secondary Stakeholders: TM
Primary Goal: Recruitment Methodology: Better open communication channels with visitors on our websites by minimizing requirements to chat Benefit: Better engage visitors and woo them into the lead pipeline vs. forcing them to first become a lead before we will engage with them. This should prove for more leads and a better user experience, not just for students, but also for other decision-makers, e.g. parents, who will now be able to chat and have their questions answered as well. This will assist in retention as Confirmed Students presently cannot chat to ask a quick question of their Site Specialist, but are rather omitted from the chat platform upon acceptance. By making it easy for users to engage with staff, we offer better customer service holistically.
Chat Business Requirements: CEA Business Implications:
Open Chat Risk Mitigation - Open chat will allow anyone to chat with us. We will address each of the following potential issues in accordance with the description after each topic: o
Foreign Students
Geo-target the appearance of the call to action. This removes the ability to chat from those we don’t want using it.
o
Post-Application Students
Add Site Specialists as Chat Operators.
Site Specialists will only directly field incoming chats from Confirmed students already assigned to them
Chat sessions may be transferred to a Site Specialist if appropriate (e.g. a parent has a question most appropriate for a Site Specialist) as determined by Admissions staff.
o
Financial questions
Add Student Accounts as Chat Operators.
Student Accounts will not field any direct incoming chats
Chat sessions may be transferred to Student Accounts as determined by Admissions and Site Specialists staff.
o
Parents
Pre-chat survey will assist us in identifying parents.
Admissions staff will then field parent questions appropriately to offer solid customer service to this demographic. Depending on the status of their child, a parent may be transferred to the appropriate Site Specialist or Student Accounts Advisor.
o
Educators
Pre-chat survey will assist us in identifying educators.
Admissions staff will then field educator questions appropriately if the inquiry is admissions related.
If the inquiry should be escalated to University Relations assistance, Admissions staff will be trained on how to take and forward the message as well.
o
Conversations will be logged in SalesForce (as all Chat conversations are).
Unknown Persons
Admissions will be trained to handle the chat similarly to a Manual lead wherein they need to solicit the information from the user in the course of the conversation.
o
An Influx of Chats –
Analytics
Presently we receive an average of approximately 35 active chats per month. We will continue to monitor this data once the changes are made to ensure quality for users and staff.
Pre-Chat Survey / Prospect Form
While we are removing the MyCEA Account 11-step requirement, we are still requiring users to complete a simpler pre-chat survey. Statistically, the more form fields required to perform an action, the fewer users will complete the action. By still having a survey, even though it is not as robust, we are not technically opening chat fully; therefore, statistically some users will still be dissuaded from initiating a chat session (to help find the desired balance, we will be implementing a notice at the top of the survey letting users know that we will not be selling their personally identifiable information).
Licenses
By starting off with all staff licensed as an operator and able to field chats as they come in (exception: manager and team leads will have operator access but we do not foresee them chatting enough pay for them each have their own licenses; they will have unique operator logins but will share a license), we are better equipped to field a higher volume of chats, which will be inevitable. If after a few months we feel the number of licenses is not being put to use, we can reassess and modify.
Training o
Site Specialists and Student Account Coordinators will be trained on how to use the LivePerson software as well as chat etiquette.
o
All operators will be trained on the new set-up, how to transfer chats, and how to handle educator chats, take good messages, and log chat sessions in SalesForce
SalesForce o
Add new Lead Source for Prospects and Accounts: “Inbound Lead – Chat”; update report so that it doesn’t appear as an “Unknown Lead”
o
Chat contacts will be entered as Prospects. This will allow for more gun-shy users to still create an account on their own in the future with CEA without creating confusion or the perception of infringing on personal information. If CEA staff feels that the student is a shop warm or hot during the chat, they may offer to create an account on behalf of the student and send them correspondence in line with such. This methodology maintains user-trust and website best practices.
o
Staff will always set follow-up activity in SalesForce as appropriate to the user based on the chat session indication (“I’ll follow-up with you next week.”; “Would you like for me to follow-up with you at the start of next term?” etc.)
LivePerson Technical Modifications:
Set-up new operators (add Site Specialists & Student Account Coordinators) and skills (this is a designation in LivePerson that will allow Site Specialists and Student Account Coordinators to be chat operators and only receive incoming chats as appropriate), and associate the new operators to the appropriate skills group
Activate additional licenses
CEA Technical Requirements:
Create a Web to Prospect form o
Will replace the Web to Account form for all Chat calls to action
o
Will create a Prospect with a Lead Source as “Inbound Lead – Chat”
o
If possible within SalesForce, should associate the prospect with a new Chat Campaign for Web to Prospect
o
Form fields should include:
*Name
*Email
required, open field box, email validation in place
*University Name
required, open field box, minimum of two character limit
required, open field box, minimum of two character limit
Who are you?
Optional, drop down menu
Field Options: o
U.S. or Canadian Student
o
Foreign Student
o
Parent
o
Educator
o
Other
Would you like to receive email communications from CEA
Optional
If the user selects “Yes” they should automatically be subscribed to the All Abroad newsletter, with a SalesForce Status open to receiving communications and therefore auto-entered into an email workflow. If the user selects “Not now”, their SalesForce Status should be blocked to receiving further email communications. Admissions would manually follow-up with the user in the course of the conversation to see if they may have changed their mind after chatting to opt in. Admissions would set future manual follow-ups with the user to re-engage them).
Field Options: o
Yes
o
Not now
Enable Site Specialist Direct Chats o
Add functionality so that post-application students who are assigned to a “Student Services Advisor” within SalesForce will be directed straight to their personal Site Specialist when initiating a Chat Session in a similar way that that pre-application students are directed to their “Account Owner”.
o
If no corresponding operator can be found (Student Services Advisor is no longer with CEA) the student should be sent to the Admissions Round Robin.
o
If their personal Site Specialist is not available, the user should be prompted to leave a direct message, with the option to chat with another advisor which would dump them in the Admissions Round Robin.
o
We may need to build in the logic that connects the Student Services Advisor with the appropriate LivePerson Site Specialist operator.
Current Chat Updates o o o
Ticket (will get reference number) - Fix Broken Link Update Chat button that has the word “Send” displaying twice Update Chat Main left-hand image to promote students to click the “Close” to take the postchat survey or get a transcript of the chat session verses just clicking the “X” at the end of the session. Considering adding as a standard phrase option for chat closure and training processes (discuss with Stakeholders) –TBD
o
Verify that for Admissions if a user’s personal Counselor is not available, they should not only be prompted to leave a direct message, but have the option to chat with another advisor, which would dump them in the Admissions Round Robin.
o
Understand https hosting issues to discontinue Secure and Unsecure messaging
Geo-Targeting o
Encode chat image so that it only displays for U.S. and Canadian viewers. All other users will not even see the chat call to action button. This will mitigate bogging our chat pipeline with unqualified chats.
New Chat Button Placements o
Additional calls to action will be added to sub-sites (e.g. University Portal; MyCEA Account) for users that previously could not chat. Images and placement will be given to IT via Basecamp project management.
Offline Chat Survey - TBD o
We recently have seen a spike in blank “When you were offline (via LivePerson)” messages. We need to investigate this bug and either fix on our end or consider switching to LivePerson’s Offline Survey. Further assessment is required at this time by IT.
Create LivePerson@GoWithCEA.com distribution list for administrative purposes