Barry University and LivePerson Bring Conversational Commerce to Education

LivePerson’s LiveEngage Platform Makes It Easier for Current and Prospective Students to Connect with the School

LivePerson, Inc. the leading provider of conversational commerce solutions, announced that it enables Barry University to message with current and prospective students over WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, SMS, and the web. Students can ask questions about everything from the application process to academic programs and receiving their transcripts, all in the same convenient way they talk with their friends and family.

“We know that our current and prospective students prefer to communicate digitally and on-the-go,” said Michel Sily, Associate VP of Marketing, Barry University. “Our goal was to meet them in the messaging channels they already use everyday. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and SMS are the most popular messaging options for our students and we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to better engage and connect with them in the most convenient way possible.”

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LivePerson’s LiveEngage conversational commerce platform enables academic institutions and other organizations to connect with their customers over popular messaging services and voice assistants, along with the organization’s own apps, website, and phone systems. LiveEngage brings together the AI and automation necessary to operate delightful customer experiences at scale, along with the backend integrations to offer capabilities such as order status updates or service changes. A workspace for customer care and sales agents is provided to monitor and support the experience and supplement automation.

Barry University, one of the first academic institutions in the world to deploy conversational commerce services across such a variety of channels, first partnered with LivePerson in 2013 to deliver a more convenient way for students to chat with the Florida-based university over its website. Barry University serves over 7,000 students, including students from over 80 countries and all 50 states.

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“Messaging allows students to interact with Barry University in the way they prefer to communicate,” said Avi Kedmi, EVP of the commercial business group at LivePerson. “Conversations now happen where the students want and at a pace and time they determine. This makes it easy for students to seamlessly connect with the university without friction and sets a new standard for the entire education industry. We’re excited to be working with innovative institutions like Barry University to improve how they engage with students.”

“Students have really appreciated being able to contact us in the way that works best for them,” added Miguel Ramirez, Director of Digital Media Strategy and Development at Barry University. “We’ve seen a flood of new conversations in these channels and as a next step, we’ll be implementing automation through the LiveEngage platform to help scale these conversations and help with lead generation, frequently asked questions, tuition payments, and more.”

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