Bladen Community College is pleased to announce the launch of “Ask Atlas”, an interactive chatbot, to answer questions from prospective and current students about the admissions process, registration, financial aid and other common topics. Bladen Community College’s chatbot is named Atlas and is a friendly squirrel icon on the college’s website that collects information from all over the campus and stores it where anyone can conveniently get some answers and additional information on a wide range of topics.
“Schools are facing great challenges and disruptions from COVID-19,” said Barry Priest, Vice-President of Student Services. “Atlas or our BCC chatbot is a very easy tool for schools to deploy to communicate about our programs, financial aid, services and COVID-19 responses. Students can engage Atlas remotely on our website, anywhere, anytime, and use it as long as they need it.”
Designed to improve customer service, save time, and reduce phone calls and wait times, the Atlas chatbot allows one to get answers to questions any time of day or night without leaving the college website.
Dr. Amanda Lee, BCC President, said that Atlas will help the college be more available to students around the clock. “We will continue to add questions and answers as new ones are asked. This tool will allow students, their families, and the community to seek information about the college on their schedule, and if Atlas doesn’t know the answer or they’d like more information, they can let us know that they’d like us to follow up with them. Chatbots have proven to be a valuable resource in colleges across the country and we are excited about offering this support service at Bladen Community College.”
Atlas is a software program by Ocelot, the nation’s largest provider of multilingual chatbots and videos to higher education. Atlas accepts free form text questions in English or Spanish, and provides immediate answers, contact information, web links, and in some instances videos to inform students about services. Atlas contains answers to more than 3,000 most commonly asked questions by website users. “Ask Atlas” can be found on the college website, www.bladencc.edu.
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