Introducing UoA Assistant

Did you know that in 2020, the Student Contact Centre received an excess of 213,000 emails, over 24,500 face-to-face encounters, 48,600 online queries, and nearly 124,000 phone calls?

With the reality of what life is now like in a global Covid-19 pandemic, the University, like many organisations, has been re-looking at the way it can support students in a fast-moving and, at times, uncertain landscape.

Meet their new team member, in the shape of a chatbot, UoA Assistant!

This virtual customer service agent, built on IBM’s ‘Watson’ Artificial Intelligence (AI) software, answers questions posed in natural or ordinary language.

The University’s working team comprising Content Authors, User Experience designers, Business Analysts, Solution Architects, and AI consultants Spark 64, have combined forces to create UoA Assistant just for you!

Members of the Student Contact Centre, have been learning the art of creating the conversational flows that UoA Assistant uses to help students. The key to creating these conversations has been utilising their experience and knowledge gained from assisting all types of students on their university journey. This includes access to information on general wellness content, to the development of nimble approaches to alerting students to sudden changes driven by Covid-19 events that impact activities such as upcoming examinations.

This new capability will support immediate responses, 24/7/365, to many student queries. The aim is to assist students with frequently asked questions via UoA Assistant – although students can still be connected to a live person if they wish! This also allows advisors to spend more time helping students with more complex queries.

Like any new learner, receiving feedback is essential for improving performance. UoA Assistant allows users to rate their experience through a simple automated feedback functionality. This feedback assists the team to refine those conversations, provide more targeted responses, and improve the degree of personalisation associated with the UoA Assistant’s chats.

To get help from UoA Assistant or explore what this new UoA team member can do for you, please visit the Applications and admissions or Exams and final results web pages.

There will be a pop-up icon in the bottom right-hand corner, which will help you get started.