How Robbinsdale Area Schools harnesses AI in their customer service strategy
The “Amazon effect” has set new standards for customer service in every industry, demanding personalized, seamless experiences and lightning-fast results. And the era of school choice, districts must consider their approach to meeting the needs of stakeholders quickly and efficiently. To address this challenge, districts across the country have implemented customer service strategies with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
But despite separate focuses on customer service and AI integration, the combination of these game-changing initiatives is often overlooked.
By implementing AI-powered service tools that automatically monitor key customer service metrics — like average response time or customer satisfaction score — school districts have visibility into daily customer interactions, tracking the day-to-day impact of their strategies.
500+ school districts nationwide are using Let’s Talk Assistant to do just that. It’s an always-on, generative AI-powered chatbot that answers questions conversationally based on your district’s data. In fact — it can only answer questions with the information imported (like articles, documents, web page URLs, FAQs, and more) so there’s no risk of hallucinations.
One of the districts seeing incredible results with Let’s Talk Assistant is Robbinsdale Area Schools in Minnesota. Here’s what Shannon Swanson, Senior Marketing and Communications Specialist, had to say about how Let’s Talk Assistant is helping their district guarantee 24/7/365 responsiveness and a measurable ROI.
“At the end of the day, we’re serving people — and that means we work in the business of connections. Let’s Talk and ‘Robbin’ (our Let’s Talk Assistant chatbot) help us answer questions all day, every day, all while collecting metrics that drive our decisions districtwide.”
Mastering K-12 communications
Superintendents and school leaders are frequently tasked with improving communications to meet the growing expectations of their board and community. While many districts do an excellent job handling outbound communications, the challenge for most is managing the incoming inquiries efficiently.
When it comes to inbound communications, the landscape can be complex and challenging to navigate. With multiple stakeholder groups, diverse communication channels, and internal answers to incoming questions, districts often struggle to streamline the process. As a result, it can be difficult for the community to understand where to go for answers.
Robbinsdale Area Schools launched Let’s Talk in July 2018 to address this challenge, launching an ongoing journey to enhance communication and customer service districtwide.
Let’s Talk about metrics
With Let’s Talk, the Robbinsdale team can track trending topics, such as enrollment or bussing concerns, ensuring they’re aware of what’s top of mind for their community. Let’s Talk monitors the frequency of interactions with the same customers, too, so previous conversations appear when a parent reaches out.
Through the Let’s Talk dashboard, Robbinsdale can monitor stakeholders’ satisfaction with the responses they receive via the Cx score (average customer experience).
In February 2023, Robbinsdale continued their journey to enhancing communication and customer service by integrating Let’s Talk Assistant — which they renamed “Robbin” for their community. This addition empowers them to deliver fast and accurate responses to common inquiries. Robbin helps the district manage interactions by tracking metrics like total questions asked, sessions started, and dialogues submitted.
Introducing generative AI for K-12
All customer interactions and analytics from the Let’s Talk Assistant chatbot are captured in Let’s Talk, too, for visibility, reporting, and metrics — and school districts nationwide have found fewer and fewer emails in their inbox thanks to the 24/7 support.
In fact, Virginia Beach City Public Schools has only had 8% of incoming chatbot dialogues require staff resolution since 2021. And Houston Independent School District reduced transportation-related questions by 90% after launching Let’s Talk Assistant last year!
With Robbinsdale’s tech-forward approach and passion for customer service, it’s no surprise they were one of the first districts to utilize our generative AI-powered chatbot.
As the use of technology in schools progresses, it’s projected that website user experience will closely reflect AI chatbots. Traditional landing pages will be replaced with a single search bar powered by AI — and it won’t stop there. The possibilities with generative AI in K-12 communications are endless.
Robbinsdale is ahead of the game, and you can be too! Start revolutionizing operations in your district today.