Streamlining interactions and enhancing student services

A leading university

Founded in 1989, Western Sydney University (WSU) has grown to become a multicampus facility offering undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral research degrees. The university has some 2,600 staff and supports more than 47,000 students. It offers courses in a wide range of areas, including business, education, social sciences and healthcare.

To support effective communication with students, the university had established a network of
12 contact centres. These centres relied on a mix of technologies, including QMaster and NEC Softphones, LivePerson for webchat, Contact Space for outbound voice and Message Net for outbound SMS.

“While this had served the university for many years, as student numbers grew it became clear it was no longer providing the support that was required,” said Scott Snyder, Chief Information and Digital Officer at WSU. “It had reached the point where the contact centres were receiving more than a million calls every year. At peak times, many were going unanswered, leading to frustration and poor levels of service.”

The search for a new platform

In 2022, WSU began the search for a new platform that could provide the university’s contact centres with the capabilities needed to keep up with rising student demand.

Working closely with its technology partner Nexon Asia Pacific, the university’s business and technology teams examined a range of alternatives by evaluating their features and ability to scale. After careful consideration, the team decided to migrate all its contact centres to the Genesys Cloud platform.

Work on the transition began in December 2022. The first and largest WSU contact centre went live on Genesys Cloud in January 2023, followed closely by the second largest in February — just in time for the peak period of student engagement.

The following five months were dedicated to transitioning all remaining contact centres to the new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered experience orchestration platform, incorporating features such as email and SMS campaigns. The second half of the year commenced a new delivery phase focusing on digital and innovation channels, including web messaging, WhatsApp, predictive engagement, and the integration of digital bots and knowledge management.

Improved student experience

With the Genesys Cloud platform fully operational, both staff and students quickly enjoyed significant benefits.

Students are now empowered to interact seamlessly across a variety of communication channels, including voice, messaging, email, SMS and WhatsApp. This helps to ensure both timely responses and personalised experiences.

The adoption of innovative features like web messaging with knowledge search and co-browse functionality has streamlined interactions, reduced student effort and enhanced satisfaction. More recently new capabilities, such as advanced speech analytics, sentiment analysis and agent assist have driven more real-time information to the various teams, cultivating a more agile and responsive environment.

“The overwhelmingly positive feedback we have had from our contact centre agents highlights the success of this transformation,” said Snyder “Staff are praising the platform’s reliability, its functionality, and its ability to deliver faster and clearer responses to students.”

Meeting growing student demand

The omnichannel capabilities of Genesys Cloud have enabled WSU to handle more than 573,000 interactions across all channels during 2023, with expectations of a significant increase in 2024.

This shift from a voice-based contact centre to a cloud-based omnichannel platform has increased its load capacity, with a 45% reduction in abandoned calls but has also significantly improved average response times with a 15-minute reduction in average speed of answer in 2023. This transformation has empowered students to interact seamlessly across a variety of channels, including voice, messaging, email, SMS and WhatsApp, ensuring timely responses and personalised experiences.

“The addition of channels like web messaging, digital bots, two-way SMS and WhatsApp have been particularly impactful,” said Snyder. “It provides students with more convenient communication options and has resulted in more than 10,000 SMS conversations in the past few months alone.”

Snyder said the integration of seven knowledge bases to a single source of truth on the Genesys Cloud platform has radically changed the way students and employees find information. This step alone has helped to transform the way in which agents carry out their day-to-day activities.

Benefits for agents

The transformation delivered by Genesys Cloud extends beyond student engagement and has changed the day-to-day experience for contact centre agents. The platform’s user-friendly interface and consolidated view of multiple channels have streamlined workflows for agents, resulting in initial daily productivity gains of up to 30 minutes per agent.

Agents no longer need to switch between tools to access different channels, saving valuable time and improving efficiency. In fact, agents are using significantly fewer applications with the all-in-one Genesys Cloud platform. Also, the deployment of script buttons for common tasks has further expedited interactions, leading to significant time savings.

“Overall, the transition to Genesys Cloud has not only optimised student engagement but has also empowered employees, positioning WSU for continued success in delivering exceptional experiences for 2024 and beyond,” concluded Snyder.