Higher Education

How Purdue University generates more high-quality applicants while saving staff time

38%
of chatbot-influenced applications converted into deposited confirms
20%
Chatbot engagement-to-application conversion rate
88%
Conversations handled completely by the chatbot
5%
2021 increase in submitted applications generated by chatbot engagement

The Purdue University Mitch Daniels School of Business has been looking to increase student enrollment. Purdue needed help:

  • Engaging with Gen Z and “cuspers” in a customer-preferred interface.
  • Opening a new, interactive communications channel with a growing global audience of prospective students, managed by a small internal team.

The Mitch Daniels School of Business implemented an AtlasRTX web-based chatbot on all their Master’s degree-related pages. Their chatbot:

  • Converts more prospective students into applicants through 24/7/365, automated, guided conversations.
  • Helps users find information faster with context awareness. The chatbot knows which program page the user is on, and asks the user what they’d like to know about that particular program.
  • Collects contact information for follow-up by the Purdue University admissions staff.
“The amount of time our chatbot spends talking with prospective students, and the number of questions our chatbot answers, would be equal to hiring three full-time staff members.”

Dan Gaines, Director of Marketing Technology, Insights & Automation | Purdue University Mitch Daniels School of Business

Since launching their chatbot in 2019, the Mitch Daniels School of Business has seen incredible engagement with the bot. For 2020 YTD, 1 in 5 prospective students who engaged with the chatbot submitted an application, and of those applications, over half were accepted; proving a higher quality of applicants being captured by the chatbot.

The impact of Mitch’s digital assistant increased dramatically in 2021 with a +5% increase in conversions to application submission.

With COVID ushering in the increased reliance on virtual meetings (Acuity), the chatbot enhancements of automated SMS follow-up resulted in 100 re-engagements via online meetings from April-August 2021, which was 12.8% of such engagements during that span.

In 2021, Purdue saw the biggest chatbot conversion growth from our online program offerings. Nearly 20% of chatbot engagements with online candidates converted into submitted applications.

Thanks to their chatbot, the Mitch Daniels School of Business has been able to scale recruiting efforts without increasing staff and allowing their small team to focus on high value tasks instead of answering repetitive questions.

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