Talkdesk’s Dedicated Higher Education CX Solution Transforms Student, Donor, and More Interactions

Talkdesk expands on commitment to solve industry-specific CX challenges; seamlessly connects disparate resources on and off campus to improve engagement across students, staff, and alumni 

• Higher education institutions facing distinct industry challenges now have a way to bring cohesion to diverse stakeholder-oriented teams and provide more meaningful, seamless customer experience (CX) in support of donations, student satisfaction, and other priority goals.

• Talkdesk Education Smart Service™ is the tenth Talkdesk packaged solution tailored to an industry vertical, in addition to industry-specific cloud contact center products pre-integrated with core industry systems, pre-designed with custom workflows and automation, and pre-trained with artificial intelligence (AI) for industry expertise.

• Innovation, scalability, and flexibility were key factors in Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa selecting the Talkdesk AI-powered contact center.

Talkdesk,a global AI-powered contact center leader for enterprises of all sizes, announced a new industry-specific packaged solution, Talkdesk Education Smart Service. It brings cohesion to disparate stakeholder-oriented teams at colleges and universities, and ensures students, staff, donors, and other stakeholders receive consistent, personalized, and inclusive customer service in all interactions.

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“I believe the strength of the Talkdesk platform lies not only in its intentional design for innovation, scalability, and flexibility, but also in the Talkdesk team’s genuine attentiveness to customer needs. They consistently listen, come up with new solutions, and unlock value in ways we may not have originally expected.”

Colleges and universities have experienced declining enrollments, high inflation, and labor shortages of late. Against this strained backdrop, and through the company’s work with multiple higher education establishments, Talkdesk recognized the need for an industry solution that would tackle the industry’s unique customer experience (CX) challenges. Talkdesk Education Smart Service marks Talkdesk’s tenth vertical-specific packaged solution and reinforces the company’s commitment to optimally meeting its customers’ CX needs.

Departments on and off campus, including admission and student services, auxiliary services, fundraising, healthcare, and help desks, have wide-ranging functions and service delivery requirements. As such, they often operate disconnected from one another with disparate processes, data repositories, and systems, resulting in an inconsistent, inconvenient experience for students, staff, and others. Talkdesk Education Smart Service equips departments with the tools, including artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI), they need to deliver fast and excellent service, while also integrating with CRMs, academic schedulers, and other systems of record (SORs). This approach speeds time to response and resolution and ensures a consistent, seamless customer service delivery, whether the engagement is with a high-stakes donor or is a simple student housing inquiry.

Key feature capabilities of Talkdesk Education Smart Service impact higher education establishments, agents, and stakeholders (students, donors, staff, etc.) in multiple meaningful ways, including:

• Scales Service Operations to Meet Seasonal Needs: Talkdesk Workforce Management™ uses AI and automation to predict contact center volumes and schedules staff during peak admission and enrollment periods. Seasonal agents can be ramped-up quickly by support from a personalized AI advisor in the form of Talkdesk Agent Assist.

• Streamlines Admissions Customer Service: Students get efficient and personalized support when they connect with a human agent to resolve questions about applications and financial aid. Talkdesk Agent Assist surfaces key information and generates real-time responses and scripted guidance pulled from trusted data across an institution’s knowledge base and entire set of business systems.

• Improves Student and Parent Satisfaction: AI-powered Talkdesk Virtual Agent gives students an easy, fast self-service option for retrieving information about campus amenities and other frequently discussed topics, as well as autonomously resolving transactional tasks like healthcare appointments and IT requests. Talkdesk Automated Notifications provides families with proactive, transparent updates about academic programs and campus life.

• Increases Donations: Leveraging outbound contact center capabilities, including predictive dialing and integrations with advanced CRMs, allows establishments to boost call volume and effectiveness for strong connections with alumni and increased donations for development initiatives.
• Supports Faculty and Staff: Facilitates easy access to human resources information and self-service for IT requests with integrations to service desk systems and facility/department directories.
• Adopting AI Responsibly: Organizations can comply with tenets of the U.S. Federal Executive Order on AI Safety around preventing fraud, deception and discrimination. Talkdesk AI Trainer includes a complete suite of tools that enables contact center administrators and staff to keep an eye on AI behavior and establish protective guardrails—all with a no-code simple interface.

In addition to a portfolio of ten vertical-tailored contact center solutions, Talkdesk also offers industry-specific cloud contact center products pre-integrated with core industry systems, pre-designed with custom workflows and automation, and pre-trained with AI for industry expertise: Financial Services Experience Cloud, Healthcare Experience Cloud, and Retail Experience Cloud.

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Supporting Quotes

Tiago Paiva, founder and chief executive officer, Talkdesk, commented: “Higher education institutions are operating in a complex environment of declining enrollment numbers and other factors. As universities and colleges adapt, a modern cloud contact center solution that maximizes AI for scale and meets colleges and universities’ unique customer service requirements will be critical to their success. With Talkdesk Education Smart Service, seamless CX can quickly become a reality as well as a real contributor to increasing donations, student satisfaction and establishment reputation, plus tightening operational spend.”

Charles Keene, associate dean, Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa, stated: “I believe the strength of the Talkdesk platform lies not only in its intentional design for innovation, scalability, and flexibility, but also in the Talkdesk team’s genuine attentiveness to customer needs. They consistently listen, come up with new solutions, and unlock value in ways we may not have originally expected.”

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