Lisa, Odisee's virtual assistant

An incredible journey for Lisa at Odisee

Imagine what would happen if you’d fire about 40,000 questions to contact center in one single month. Chances are it’d be swamped, and staff would most probably have difficulties answering on time and in person. To optimize the ‘customer’ experience of its future graduates, Odisee Hogeschool (i.e. college of higher education) decided to automate the answers to the most frequent questions. Oswald gave birth to a chatbot named Lisa, just a few weeks ahead of this academic year.

Right from the start, freshman Lisa proved to be quite popular: after one month, she had replied to approximately 38,000 questions asked through more than 66,000 messages sent, by around 7,000 users already. Only 3% of these questions stayed unanswered by the virtual assistant.

"We notice that students prefer to ask the bot for information than to look it up themselves on our online students portal. Lisa gives them the direct link”, says Ingrid Reniers from Odisee’s students administration. "Therefore, we are very satisfied with Lisa, thanks to both the product and the process that we created together, and mostly by its result. Lisa gets solicited very often, and we follow its progress every week. Lisa is fast, easy to use and clear. Those are all key success factors."

A fast and effective solution

Students and future applicants can consult Lisa via info.odisee.be or Facebook Messenger. The digital companion works instantly and is capable of answering many questions concerning Odisee Hogeschool.

Lisa became quickly very successful. Students find the solution so convenient and easy to access. No need to look for the information center’s contact to call them or wait for their answer by email anymore. By just using their Facebook Messenger app on their smartphones, they can chat with Lisa directly. In just a few messages, they get their answer.

Thanks to its efficiency, Lisa is now the connecting component for the current information channels on the campus. Among the most frequently asked questions, a high number is about registration and administration information, such as the process to register, the conditions, the costs or the opening hours...

Lisa's family is growing

Chatbots unburden employees by taking over repetitive tasks. Furthermore, facilities such as universities and schools are dealing with many, many users. Questions can quickly rise to thousands. As a consequence, virtual assistants are booming in education: Odisee Hogeschool is not the only institution Raccoons is working with. Since the beginning of this year, we have also been assisting Syntra learning center’s trainees thanks to Lisa's sister, Vera.