A quick search on ‘AI across industries ‘ will reveal a number of results that stress upon the same thing: the need for a digital brain. Well, thanks to cognitive search, it’s not just possible but quite easy too.
But when it comes to the education sector, the challenges are unlike any other. Around 92 percent of students worldwide are interested in personalized support and information on degree progress. And that’s just the students. Educational institutes have many other users—alumni, aspirants, employees—and they all have different needs. On top of that, information spread across disparate repositories only makes the matter worse. Here again, cognitive search can help in a number of ways.
It Helps Users Cut Through The Information Overload
In the good old days, a website used to be an afterthought for educational institutes. Campus visits & brochures formed a huge part of the decision-making process for student admissions. Not anymore!
Online presence has taken the center stage & is a major catalyst that drives aspirants toward a university & converts them into students by making information available at their fingertips. But that creates another problem: information overload. There’s a tremendous amount of information scattered over a litany of platforms.
New visitors, students, alumni, stakeholders have to keep switching from portal to portal for required data & are at their wits’ end. Therefore, it’s important to provide a seamless experience to anyone visiting your digital properties. Here’s how cognitive search helps.
It indexes disparate repositories using inbuilt connectors and provides users with cross-domain search to make relevant content easily discoverable. Additionally, it allows one to search internal data sources like the document management system integrated with an LDAP server.
It Provides Powerful Search Analytics To Optimize Your Website
A website is only as good as the information it provides to the users. But how do you decide what needs to be displayed on a portal to be used by a wide variety of users including international students?
Search analytics provided by cognitive engines help you decide what should be presented. They provide rich insights by monitoring user activity. For instance, it reports popular searches, unsuccessful searches, engagement on results, etc. that empower you to update & customize the search results. You can use Unsuccessful Searches report to identify and plug the existing content gaps.
It Personalizes Search Results Based On User History & Search Trends
Since we’re talking about university search & data sources, a natural question that arises is with the wide range of users logging in, how do you ensure relevancy is not limited to a select few? The answer is cognitive search.
It comes with dynamic filters and facets that help refine information discovery by segmenting content according to faculty, file type, credit points, location, courses, policies, etc. An advanced cognitive engine personalizes the user experience by automatically creating the most relevant facets based on user history and search trends. Topping it all off, AI-based algorithms have the capability to differentiate between users based on their roles and present personalized content.
It Extracts User Intent From Keywords And Provides Just What Is Needed
Many institutions have a dedicated space for e-learning. If you thought finding information from the university website is tough, doing the same on an LMS (Learning Management System) is an altogether different ball game.
Let’s say a user is interested in “Using CSS For Animations” but can only find CSS courses for website development. In such cases, the user would simply assume that your institution doesn’t offer that course because the results don’t have it.
Cognitive search is the trump card that will deliver a better UX by matching the aspirants to the right content no matter where it resides. NLP understands the intent of the search query and displays relevant results. Additionally, cognitive engines help you display dynamic course recommendation lists based on ‘popular courses’ or ‘beginner favorites’ to make it easier for users to find just what they need.
It Provides Round The Clock Personal Counselor
Applying to a university is often the first step for accomplishing our dreams. We all have been there. Aspirants don’t leave any stone unturned to excavate all the information related to the university & their preferred course. And when they can’t find answers to their queries, they bombard the admin team with calls and emails. A lot of international students end up frustrated because their calls often go to answering machines due to lack of 24*7 support or staff unavailability. A missed call is a missed opportunity.
Now wouldn’t it be great if you could allot one person for the doubts & queries of each student? Sounds far-fetched? It’s not! Search-aided chatbots can handle multiple conversations at the same time, provide contextual responses, are available round the clock & support cross-channel functionality. An interactive chatbot deployed on the website can reduce query emails & increase conversion. And even if it’s not able to provide the correct answer, it provides graceful hand-offs to the support team, making it a must-have.
The Crux
Gone is the era when institutions could get by without focusing on user experience. Now your digital properties need to demonstrate intelligence in order to make a positive impression. Those who still follow a stick-in-the-mud approach will struggle to meet the expectations of the young, tech-savvy, and motivated people.
SearchUnify is a cognitive search solution that enhances the user search experience with an array of features. If you want to match the students’ pace, request a demo today.