How the University of Missouri – Kansas City quickly and effectively engaged new prospects with live chat
About UMKC
UMKC is the largest comprehensive, fully accredited university in the Kansas City area. Their faculty are leaders in their fields — and they’re within reach for their students. Their 14:1 student-to-faculty ratio means professors know their students’ names and take mentorship seriously.
UMKC students come from all 50 states and 85+ countries, enriching their community with diverse perspectives. And with more than 125 academic areas, their students have a lot of opportunities to explore on their way to discovering and creating their perfect career.
An Opportunity to Grow Impact
Like many regional public institutions, UMKC never wants to rest on their laurels when it comes to filling their incoming class. In addition to building strategies to support conversion and yield via a combination of online and offline strategies, the team also sought to ensure any student who was still considering pursuing a degree at UMKC had the opportunity to learn more. So, like a lot of their peers, UMKC invested in lists of undecided seniors late in the enrollment process in one final attempt to connect with as many interested students as possible throughout the process.
A Unique Approach
Partnering with PlatformQ Education, UMKC leveraged their campus connect chat widget (embedded directly on to their admissions webpage) to qualify new inquiries from their prospect pool. Leveraging their new list of prospective students, the admissions staff hosted a live informational chat, directly on UMKC.edu, with the intent of converting new inquiries by having students sign up to chat directly on their website.
The chat was staffed with current students sharing their story and admissions officers to answer any questions prospective students may have about the process. The chat was live from 4 PM – 8 PM local time to allow students and parents to join after school and work hours.
Immediate and Measurable Impact
Enrollment managers know that any engagement in April is good engagement when it comes to filling a class. The 4 hour live chat brought in nearly 40 additional prospective students, all without the need for additional postage or travel to identify them. Additionally, because the chat was hosted directly on UMKC’s admissions webpage, this gave students (whether they attended the chat or not) the opportunity to further research UMKC’s programs and start the application process.
"We were ready to engage students as quickly as possible, but the level of engagement we had in that first chat experience through our website was unexpected. We weren’t just communicating with students through chat, we were building relationships with them. It was an incredibly rewarding experience for our entire admissions team, who was seeing a new and immediate way to build relationships with students we may otherwise have never interacted with." – Alice Arredondo, Director of Admissions, UMKC
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