Table of contents

Online education has become popular in recent years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many institutions continue to offer online classes, even as the pandemic ends. Online education allows anyone with a good internet connection to learn.

However, the shift from offline to online classrooms can be challenging. Students may not take online classes as seriously, leading to a lack of motivation, missed assignments, and dropping out.

To prevent this, it is important to keep students engaged through regular communication on platforms like WhatsApp. Educators can use a chatbot to handle repetitive communications and involve human team members only when it is needed.

What is a WhatsApp chatbot? #

A WhatsApp chatbot is a software that simulates human conversations on WhatsApp without human intervention. It can be programmed to do all kinds of communications you need in your EdTech business, such as answering customer questions, sending class reminders, promoting new courses, and more.

You don’t have to have programming knowledge to create a WhatsApp chatbot for your business. You can create a bot by using a bot builder like Rasayel, and tailor it to your specific needs.

Use cases of a WhatsApp chatbot in EdTech #

It is up to you to decide what a WhatsApp chatbot does for you. In A simple strategy for creating a user-friendly WhatsApp chatbot, we talk about how to decide what to automate with a bot. Here is a list of common use cases of a WhatsApp chatbot for EdTech businesses:

Customer engagement #

On your website, you could have a WhatsApp chatbot widget that engages your website viewers. Every time a potential learner visits your website, your bot could offer to help them answer their questions or find the course they need.

Lead qualification #

You may offer various courses suitable for different learners with different backgrounds and expectations. You could define a set of questions to qualify and match learners with courses. Your WhatsApp chatbot could ask these questions with reply buttons and offer learners a list of suitable courses. If you’d like to learn more about reply buttons and WhatsApp’s other interactive message types, please read the One-stop guide for interactive WhatsApp messages.

Learner registration #

Registration is a repetitive process that every one of your learners must finish. Let your WhatsApp chatbot handle it for you. Your bot asks the learners questions like their name, their grade, the course they want to register in, and other relevant information to register them. In the end, it confirms their registration.

If learners have questions while registering, they can ask the bot in the chat and get their answers, making the customer experience closer to real-life registration at an office.

Setup Instructions #

After learners register and want to prepare for the first class, they may need instructions from you. You can set up a WhatsApp chatbot to educate them on the technicalities of your teaching platform and the materials they need to prepare for the first class.

Send learning materials and receive assignments #

Before each class, you may want to send your learners documents on the upcoming class’s material. You can also send them assignments and receive them back for marking. If you have regular weekly/monthly progress reports, your bot could automatically send them. All of these are possible because of WhatsApp’s rich media capabilities that allow sending and receiving documents (such as PDF, DOC) and images.

Send recorded class videos #

Students may miss classes or like to go through the classes they’ve already attended. It’s a great idea to let them view the recordings of past classes. You could send them these videos over WhatsApp.

Automate reminders and notifications #

There are many kinds of reminders that an educational institution needs to send its learners. You can automate your bot to send class day and time reminders, due payment notifications, incomplete registration notifications, assignment deadline reminders, and more.

Send attendance report #

A WhatsApp bot could inform the parents about their child’s attendance or absence at the end of each week or class.

Run marketing campaigns #

You should keep your alumni engaged and inform them of your new courses. One of the best ways to do that is to automate marketing campaigns on WhatsApp with a bot. They could ask for further information about the course syllabus, pricing, and other matters and your bot could either answer them or refer them to a human agent.

How to get a WhatsApp chatbot for your EdTech business #

You can get a WhatsApp chatbot in two ways:

• Code it yourself
• Use a chatbot builder like Rasayel to create one

Regardless of what you choose to do, you must have the following:

• A Facebook Business account
• A phone number that meets Meta’s criteria
• Access to the WhatsApp Business Platform/API or WhatsApp Cloud API
• A CRM or a team inbox (like Rasayel) to send and receive messages

Neither of the WhatsApp APIs has an interface/inbox to send and receive messages. Therefore, a business must use an inbox or a CRM for customer communications. Rasayel is a WhatsApp inbox that lets you communicate with your customers over WhatsApp as a team. It offers many features, such as bulk messaging, a chatbot, reports, automation rules, and more.

If you want to use Rasayel as your WhatsApp inbox and build a chatbot, you can use either of our Premium or Enterprise plans:

Premium Plan ($200 per month) #

It’s suitable for high-volume teams with complex workflows and has the following features:

• For up to 10 team members
• $20 per additional member
• You can connect up to 50 channels (either multiple WhatsApp channels or Instagram, Facebook, Telegram and more)
• Unlimited contacts
• Unlimited messages
• Importing contacts
• Have it in your browser or as a mobile app for android and ios devices
• Assignments rules
• Custom views
• Bots
• Campaigns
• Auto notifications
• Reporting
• Ability to integrate with Shopify, HubSpot and Zapier
• Priority support via email or chat
• Onboarding support

Enterprise Plan (Custom Pricing) #

This is the option for teams that need a custom-tailored plan. It has the same features as the premium plan, including bots, plus the following:

• It can be customized for the number of team members you have.
• You can connect unlimited channels.
• We provide training.

You may try Rasayel for free for 14 days. No credit card is needed.

Final thoughts #

While distance learning has created many opportunities for learners and educational institutions, it comes with its challenges. One of the challenges is keeping learners engaged from their first touchpoint until after they finish a course. With a WhatsApp chatbot, you can stay in touch with your learners with minimal human intervention.

Learn more #

If you’d like to learn more about how WhatsApp can help you grow your business, please reach out to us on WhatsApp at+13024070488

We also offer a free consultation session where we go through your use case, answer any questions you have about WhatsApp, and help you build a strategy to make the most out of the platform. Book a call with us below. We’d love to speak with you:

For Europe, Middle East, and Africa

For North and South America

Further reading #

A simple strategy for creating a user-friendly WhatsApp chatbot

How to use a WhatsApp chatbot for your real estate business