1. Providing Effective Answers 24/7 Using EMT Answer Lougan Bishop Information Systems Assistant & Web Specialist

2. A little about Belmont University Comprehensive university located in Nashville, TN Just over 5,000 students with approximately 4,200 undergrads and 800 graduates 75 majors and 10 graduate programs Rapid Growth Phase: Enrollment up 69% since 2000

3. Challenges Communicating with Students Everyone wants answers, and they want them now. Availability after hours and on weekends to answer phone calls For those looking for answers on a website, website searches don’t always give concise results

4. EMT Answer and ASK BU? Available 24/7 It can intelligently answer questions If it can’t answer a question, it can submit the question to be answered by a human being Information can be built upon or removed at any time. Extremely customizable

5. EMT Answer and ASK BU?

7. A Quick Look at Answer The Virtual Advisor Custom Answers The Knowledge Builder

8. The Virtual Advisor Contains the core questions of the Answer system The questions are always editable. You can set expiration dates to make sure questions stay up to date

9. The Virtual Advisor

10. Custom Answers These are questions and answers you add based on your specific needs Can be a Key point, this is where a full answer is returned when a question contains a certain keyword. Can be an FAQ, which is a link added to the bottom of the returned response. This link points to the custom answer. Can have expiration dates as well.

11. Custom Answers

12. The Knowledge Builder Repository of all unanswered questions Questions can be forwarded within the system or by email to someone who can answer it Submitted questions can be added to Custom Answers

13. The Knowledge Builder

14. Reporting in Answer Know when visitors are using the product Know what questions your visitors ask the most. Know what questions are being asked, that you have yet to answer. Use the rating system and visitor feedback to find out what questions aren’t getting answered satisfactorily.

15. Reporting in the Virtual Advisor

16. Question Distribution

17. Most Popular Quick Answers

18. Most Popular Unmatched Questions

19. Most Popular Custom Answers

20. Student Feedback

21. Reporting in the Knowledge Builder

23. Helpful Tips Assign the questions in the Virtual Advisor to different people ◦Assign questions to the experts in each department: Admissions, Financial Aid, Registrar, etc Give thoughtful answers to the questions in Virtual Advisor ◦Don’t just throw in quick short answers, answer the questions as if a student asked the question to you face to face ◦Avoid just throwing a link to the information on your website

24. Helpful Tips Integrate it with your website ◦Brand it so that it pops out from the rest of the content ◦Place it prominently on important pages Pay attention to the feedback you receive ◦Use feedback and ratings as a way to improve your answers ◦Check your feedback often Use the Knowledge Builder ◦Use those submitted questions to build new custom answers ◦When you get a lot of submitted questions similar to those in the Virtual Advisor, make sure you answered the Virtual Advisor questions thoroughly.

25. Helpful Links Belmont Website http://www.belmont.edu Ask BU http://www.belmont.edu/prospectivestudents/askbu http://www.belmont.edu http://www.belmont.edu/prospectivestudents/askbu EMT Users Community http://emtusers.askadmissions.net/ Contact Me! bishopl@mail.belmont.edu http://emtusers.askadmissions.net/ bishopl@mail.belmont.edu