24/7 Academic Assistance: How Chatbots Enhance Student Support

Providing high-quality education is not an easy task, but what many educational institutions forget is that students require attention even when they aren’t in class. This is why offering academic assistance is a must if you are providing educational services of some kind.

Luckily, chatbots make it easy to provide support around the clock. Some educational institutions have already integrated them on their websites, but there are still many that are reluctant. Without further ado here’s how chatbots enhance student support and why you should start using them.

1. 24/7 Support Academic Assistance

The number one reason why educational institutions of all types and sizes are now turning to chatbots is that they can provide 24/7 support. Unlike a human being, a chatbot doesn’t need to eat, sleep, or rest. It can work hours and hours every day and night. In other words, it is always available to students which is exactly what they need – round-the-clock support.

Of course, a chatbot may break down at some point, but this will likely be a rare occasion if it otherwise works well. If you work with human representatives to provide academic support, you will definitely need a team to handle multiple requests at the same time. Moreover, you won’t be able to provide support outside of working hours which means students will have nowhere to go in case of an emergency.

2 . Instant Responses

Another reason why educational institutions should start installing chatbots to provide academic support is that they can give instant responses. The program doesn’t need time to think which means the student will receive an instant answer to their question. It’s a great way to save time both for the student and for the academic support center.

The chatbot scans the request it gets to understand the question. Then, it gives a reply based on what it perceives the question to be. All of this happens quickly which is why the speed of responses is incomparable to humans. And if the question wasn’t actually answered or the student has more questions, they can ask the chatbot again to get the right answer.

3. Affordability

Though the initial cost of installing a chatbot on your website may seem a bit intimidating, it’s actually more affordable in the long run. Just think about it:

• To install a chatbot, you will need to pay a fixed price once.
  • Human representatives providing academic support will need to be paid regularly – and there are also more of them.
• As time goes on, you will need to pay for maintenance costs in case the chatbot breaks down for some reason.
  • Human representatives will need training to upgrade their qualifications from time to time. They could also get sick.

While chatbots sound like an obvious win, you shouldn’t dismiss human academic support altogether. In fact, it’s best to install a chatbot as well as hire representatives to provide student support if you want the best results. A chatbot is rather meant to supplement the work of your support center – not replace your employees.

4. Task Automation

Automation is one of the many benefits of AI that is already used in every field imaginable. It is already used in education in many ways, but chatbots can be another example where it is present. When a student asks a question, the chatbot sends an automatic reply which was pre-written beforehand. But in addition to that, you can also set up the chatbot to perform other tasks besides answering questions.

For example, if the student needs to see the schedule for the next day, the chatbot can check it for them. It can even give the student personalized replies based on their profile (more on this later). When it comes to pre-written responses, you will need to take the time to create them based on the most common questions students have. You can hire an experienced writer from the writing service Trust My Paper to help you with this.

5. Personalization

Speaking of personalization, it is another benefit of using a chatbot to provide student support. Every student is different which means their questions could be quite individualized depending on their learning profile, background, and so on. Human representatives usually check the student’s profile to provide more personalized support, but chatbots can do this too.

You can give the chatbot access to your student database so that it can access the student’s information when needed. The chatbot can ask the student to provide their name and ID at the beginning of the interaction. The chatbot can then check the student’s profile and provide more personalized answers to their questions. Likewise, if the student has already interacted with the chatbot before, it can consult those interactions to understand the student better.

6. Accuracy

Humans make mistakes which is why students may receive inaccurate information when contacting student support. Luckily, chatbots are highly accurate. If they are set up correctly, they will give accurate and instant answers to any questions students may have. This is particularly true for advanced chatbots that are regularly upgraded by their developers.

That being said, chatbots do make mistakes sometimes. There are several reasons why a student may still receive inaccurate information from the chatbot:

• The person who wrote the response for the chatbot made a mistake, so the response is already incorrect.
• The chatbot didn’t understand the question correctly and gave a response to another question by mistake.
• The chatbot is not programmed to reply to the kind of question the student has and can’t give an accurate reply.

7. Streamlined Conversations

As mentioned earlier, the best way to use a chatbot is by using it as an additional feature. Instead of only offering support through the chatbot, the support team should install it to offer additional support while still providing human support. In this scenario, the chatbot is meant to help you streamline conversations with students and improve the way the support team works overall.

The chatbot can give instant replies to common questions, but if the student needs more answers, they can get in touch with a human representative. Human support representatives can answer more time-consuming and complex questions as well as deal with sensitive topics. The AI technologies used in chatbots are not advanced enough to solve some problems students may have which is why human representatives are still necessary.

8. Variety of Resources

Though the chatbot is limited in some ways, it still gives the student access to a wide variety of resources. The chatbot has responses to the most common questions students have that are usually answered in an FAQ section or an information center. Essentially, the chatbot gives the student access to a knowledge base but does the work of finding the answer on its own.

Once again, the way you set up your chatbot matters a lot. If you don’t write correct responses to questions, the chatbot will not be able to function properly and help students solve their problems. You can use the Write My Essays AI tool to help you create these responses quickly. Then, work with professional writers and educators to improve the responses and make sure that they are correct.

9. Personal Improvement

Students sometimes contact academic support centers not because they need academic support per se but rather because they need general support. There are many students whose motivation can decrease during their studies and who may be less engaged in the learning process. They need guidance and advice that can help them get back on track.

While chatbots are not the ultimate solution, they can provide that kind of guidance to an extent. Even simply helping students find the information they are looking for and answer their questions can help them feel less stressed. This will give students more room for personal improvement and will encourage them to get more involved in their studies.

10. Academic Improvement

Last but not least, in addition to personal improvement, chatbots can help with academic improvement. If you set up the chatbot in a certain way, it can help students with their studies and improve their study and time management skills. The chatbot can help students with all kinds of academic questions without actually doing the work for them:

• The chatbot can be used as a calculator to help with mathematical questions.
• The student can request the chatbot to ask questions to the student like in a quiz based on a particular lesson from a particular course. This can be a method for exam preparation.
• The chatbot can quickly show information about the student’s schedule, grades, assignments, upcoming exams, and more by consulting the student’s profile. This saves time for the student and lets them focus on their studies more.

Wrapping Up

At the end of the day, the effectiveness of the chatbot you use depends on the way you set it up. So make sure to do the work and ensure that the chatbot operates the way you want it to. You absolutely need to provide high-quality academic assistance, and using a chatbot is by far one of the best ways to do this.