Can Virtual Counsellors stop hard selling in Ed-Tech?

The Backstory

India, a land of Takshashila and Nalanda universities, where traditionally the relationship between Guru (teacher) and Shishya (student) was considered pious has seen an upheaval in recent years.

This longs back to many decades when opportunities were limited and where education especially for the poor and middle class was considered as a ticket to a better life than previous generations. With the sprouting of coaching classes that enabled aspiring students to crack the coveted entrance exams to esteemed universities, the demand was still disproportionately outpacing supply, resulting in another round of entrance exams for these classes. Also, the supply though fragmented, was driven by institutions. Thus, the sales model was inbound instead of outbound.

With the emergence of the internet and e-learning, individual teachers or course creators got the opportunity to create their own brands, and the balance started shifting. Not only was there a growth in demand, but a disproportionate growth in supply. The sales models started recalibrating and outbound sales started picking up. The success stories of a few teachers who created Indian and even global brands spurred the others.

Two events acted as catalysts. Firstly, VC money. This not only gave birth to new institutions in the form of Ed-Tech companies. Secondly, Covid happened. With schools closed and all school teachers teaching virtually, the consumer adoption to the new form of learning zoomed.

The result - In the post Covid era, India had 2500+ Ed-Tech companies. But, in this short duration, did the number of students or professionals seeking courses increase in the same proportion? Or did the per capita income of the target audience increase in the same proportion? The answer to both the questions is unfortunately ‘No’.

The Birth of a Menace

The aftermath of skewness in the supply vs demand sides, led to the total overhaul of the sales model. Now, it transitioned from mostly inbound to mostly outbound. Running digital ads to get customers to download the app or at least generate a lead became the norm. The drudgery of aspiring students and concerned parents just got started. Now, as soon as the lead was created, the student and the parent would find a sales agent in the garb of a counsellor in their home the subsequent day. The sole objective of the so called counsellor was to somehow prove that the student had glaring learning gaps which could only be bridged by an online course. Though this practice was limited to a few cash rich institutions, the ripple effect was seen across.

Result: No Brand offering & User need overlap → Drop off (Business loss)

Even if the counsellor wasn’t at their doorstep, the parent was buzzed incessantly with sales calls. The mid and small education institutions had to follow suit in the fear of getting left behind. The holy trust between the Guru and Shishya was sadly lost.

Tech to the Rescue

Sales up till now was considered a human expertise. The key ingredients of a good sales person are

• Good listening skills

• Empathetically build rapport

• Understand the need of the customer

• Drive business goals by mapping customer needs to the product benefits

• Logically handle objections

Now Generative AI has unlocked the power to capture context from human language which has elevated the capability of a virtual sales agent much closer to a human salesperson. Want to see how?

• Good listening: By conversing in the language of the customer, the AI captures necessary user information relevant for next best action

• Rapport Building: In a research ChatGPT responses were scored more empathetic than even doctors.

• Understanding the customer: Now by observing user interaction with website assets in real time and active questioning, the AI can gather actionable insights. Ex: A student engaging with memes on the webpage can be treated differently from the one reading reviews.

• The AI will never struggle in remembering all course details and price points and requires no training for learning new updates

• By understanding customer needs, profile and use case, the AI personalises recommendations like an actual counsellor. Moreover, it can nudge towards defined business goals like upsell combos, watch demo video or seek app downloads

• Lastly, by being data driven, the approach of the AI is far more logical than a human and thus is able to solve objections rationally.

All this happens while ensuring standardisation across all conversations which can never be replicated by a huge sales force. Hence, an AI Virtual sales agent is actually able to don the hat of a counsellor that not only precisely guides the student, but at the same time drives business goals. As it is not capable of making calls or stepping into homes, it acts as a knowledgeable education counsellor only.

Change the Game with Verifast AI

Most ed-techs run ads on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Google etc for discovery to drive traffic to their course landing page or home page. But, this is where the game gets interesting. As a business leader, you would be worried about

• How to respond to queries immediately?

• How do I educate visitors about relevant courses?

• How to engage and generate warm leads?

• How do I drive trial videos or combo courses?

We hear you and many Ed-tech founders. The Verifast Virtual Counsellor addresses them quickly in a single conversation. Below is the snapshot of a conversation of a student with our customer’s AI Counsellor. The company provides medical courses for aspiring students and doctors.

The Business Impact with Verifast AI

We can summarise the Verifast effect in broadly four spheres

• Active engagement: Immediate interaction happens in the language the customer speaks. Query handling per support agent was limited to 15-20 per day. It scaled up to 250-300 per day with AI → an astonishing 1400% jump.

• Quality lead generation: A warm lead is being generated by every fourth customer conversation. In absolute terms, this has witnessed another 100% growth.

• App downloads: By driving demo videos our Virtual counsellors are accounting as a separate channel for app downloads → Accounting for 20% of overall downloads.

• Enrollments: After unlocking the Verifast Counsellor, we have improved paid course enrollments by 18% in comparison to Pre-Verifast levels

In a Nutshell

By taking an AI first interaction approach with Verifast, you can not only make the digital customer acquisition process more seamless, but also make the sales process more rewarding without the menace of hard selling. Now you just need to focus on nurturing the Guru - Shishya relationship and leave sales to us. What is stopping you from being an AI first Ed-Tech company and having a Virtual Counsellor?