With college enrollments trending downward in the state, the team at OCC was charged with increasing enrollment and retaining currently enrolled students. They chose an AI chatbot to engage first-time freshmen,“stopouts”, and current students.
Ocean County College is doing everything in their power to get more first-time students on campus and retain their currently enrolled students. They launched their chatbot, Reggie, in November 2017 and initially only communicated with students in the admissions funnel from November 2017 to October 2018. Sheenah Hartigan, Director of Enrollment Services, knew she wanted to see an increase in enrollment, but didn’t set a specific benchmark upfront. She sent several creative campaigns to students and closely monitored enrollment numbers. Most of the campaigns focused on completing their application to OCC, paying their bill to ensure fall classes were secured, applying for scholarships and FAFSA, and keeping students engaged over the summer months.
Hartigan, to this day, claims Reggie is her favorite employee and she loves engaging with the bot. Read the full case study here.