The challenge

Reed Learning wanted to understand whether conversational messaging could complement established channels such as web forms, email and telephone. The key questions were practical: could WhatsApp improve response and engagement rates, shorten the time taken to respond, support more natural fact-finding conversations and create a better learner experience without introducing unnecessary implementation risk?

A genuinely collaborative evaluation

From the outset, the project was treated as a joint evaluation rather than a simple technology deployment. Reed contributed its industry knowledge and courses; Premier CX contributed specialist conversation design and CX expertise, video and rich-media production, analytics and ongoing support.

A close working relationship allowed both teams to learn quickly. Decisions were made using live data and frontline experience. Weekly reviews helped identify learnings quickly allowing agile development of the solution that ultimately delivered better results, faster.

Measured results

The POC showed that learners were willing to use WhatsApp for more than a simple initial response. Conversations included early-stage fact-finding before learners moved to another channel such as email or telephone. The reduction in response time after introducing a daily data upload also demonstrated how operational improvements could materially increase the service’s effectiveness. A future integrated model could reduce response times further by removing manual hand-offs.