2014

CUSTOMER SUCCESS

StraighterLineEngaging with Students to Build an Affordable Education

1© 2014 LivePerson, Inc.

StraighterLine had owned a live chat solution from LivePerson for two years, but it was not being used

to its full potential. The rapidly growing provider of self-paced college courses realized that live chat had great potential,

and hired two dedicated live chat agents. One year later, seven agents field 2,500 to 3,000 live chat conversations per

month for both sales and service. Customer satisfaction for the channel is at 90 percent, and the conversion rate for live

chat is 10 percentage points better than for all website visitors. Five percent of phone inquiries are now deflected to live

chat, and the digital engagement solution helps the company avoid the cost of tripling the call center staff.

The cost of a college education in the United States has been skyrocketing

for many years. The average cost of tuition, books, room, and board at all

institutions increased almost sixfold between 1980 and 2011. Even when

inflation is taken into account, the real cost of an education has risen by

more than 230 percent during that same period.1

As a longtime consultant, researcher, and writer on education issues,

Burck Smith was all too familiar with this trend. In 2008, he founded

StraighterLine to help address it. “We offer self-paced, independent

study college courses at an affordable price,” explains Lisa Foreman,

the company’s marketing manager. “We partner with top universities

so that students can take our general education courses, and then

seamlessly transfer the credits to our partner institutions.” The

company has grown quickly, and more than 15,000 students have

now taken StraighterLine courses.

StraighterLine is able to cut the cost of courses dramatically

because of the way they are delivered. “We don’t have the physical

overhead that a brick-and-mortar institution has. In addition, we

price our courses much closer to cost than many online schools,”

says Gemma Gibson, manager of student support. Students choose

between the independent study version of a course, and a premium

version that provides additional content and makes a professor

available for consultation.

2,500%

INCREASE IN 1 MONTHLYCHAT CONVERSATIONS

IN ONE YEAR

CUSTOMER SUCCESS StraighterLine

Optimizing Live ChatStraighterLine deployed live chat through the LivePerson platform in 2011, not long after the company’s first students were enrolled. “At first,

we didn’t utilize it to its full potential,” Foreman recalls. “Then in January 2013, I was given the credentials to LivePerson, so I looked into it and

realized we were missing substantial opportunities.”

At the time, the company was completing around 100 chat conversations per month, with inquiries fielded on an ad-hoc basis by members

of the telephone call center team. “I added some questions to our pre-chat survey, such as the visitor’s email address, so that I could quantify

2© 2014 LivePerson, Inc.

CUSTOMER SUCCESS StraighterLine

StraighterlineFounded: 2008

Industry: Education

Headquarters: Baltimore, Maryland

Students Served: 15,000 to date

Credits Transferred: 16,000+ in 2013

The Challenge• Engage with students and

prospective students in a familiar channel

• Provide engagement optionsfor mobile users

• Improve conversion and customer satisfaction rates

The SolutionEngagement Model: Proactive live chat deployment for sales and service

Under the Hood: Rules-based targeting of high-value visitors; mobile chat for responsive website

LivePerson Customer Success: Ongoing advice on best practices and optimal configurations

the potential of live chat,” Foreman says. “I found that our conversion rate for the limited deployment would

more than offset the cost of hiring some extra hands.” The company brought two agents on board to staff

one LiveEngage agent seat, enabling live chat to be made available for extended hours on weekdays and

weekends. Within two months, they were having 500 conversations per month.

Once the program proved itself, it was transferred to Gibson’s student support team, where it has continued

to grow. StraighterLine now owns five concurrent agent seats for the LiveEngage platform, and the number

of live chat agents has grown to seven. Different agents handle sales inquiries from prospective students

versus support inquiries from current students. Whether an inquiry is for sales or service is determined by

a short pre-chat survey, after which visitors are greeted by the appropriate agent. “Right now, about

60 percent of our inquiries involve sales, and 40 percent involve support,” Gibson reports. “But on weekends,

most of our conversations are support inquiries from current students.”

A Smooth Experience, Regardless of DeviceClick-to-chat buttons are ubiquitous on the company’s website. Communicating by live chat is simply seen

as less intrusive than by phone.”

StraighterLine also uses rules-based targeting through the LiveEngage platform to invite high-value visitors

to proactive live chat. “The rules are linked with our Google Analytics account to determine the best visitors

to reach out to,” Gibson explains. “In addition, our chatters are trained to search for students who are sitting

on a page for a long time, and manually invite those visitors to chat. Overall, proactive chat now accounts

for 30 percent of our live chat conversations.”

StraighterLine just launched a new mobile-friendly website with responsive design, and mobile live chat

from LivePerson is integrated into that site. “College-age people are on their phones and tablets far more

often than their PCs,” Gibson notes. “I expect that 30 percent of or conversations will be via mobile devices

in a year. The deployment of mobile live chat was easy, and we’re excited to see the early results.”

Efficient and Effective OperationsThe StraighterLine team takes full advantage of their LivePerson Customer Success manager, who helps

them make the most effective use of the LivePerson platform, using best practices gleaned from customers

around the world to recommend everything from configuration of the solution to training to process

improvements. “He has given us a lot of good ideas,” Gibson declares.

Regarding training, StraighterLine’s live chat agents receive training not only in live chat, but also as

enrollment counselors and student advisors. “They understand the in’s and out’s of our learning management

system and back-end systems like billing, to help students fully,” Gibson notes. Formal training is particularly

important, since live chat agents don’t actually see each other too often, although they communicate by email

and phone. “They work crazy hours and are divided between two of our offices,” she explains.

Once they’re staffing chat lines, agents have access to canned answers to frequently asked questions

directly from the LiveEngage console. “We have between 20 and 25 canned answers, but we discourage

agents from just cutting and pasting them into conversations,” Gibson explains. “We want them to put their

own spin on them and personalize them for each customer.”

© 2014 LivePerson, Inc. 3

CUSTOMER SUCCESS StraighterLine

“”

I expect that 30 percent of or conversations will be via mobile devices in a year.

The ResultsSales and Customer Relationships

• 10 percentage points higher conversion rate for live chat participants compared with all website visitors

• 2,500% increase in monthly chat conversations in one year, from 100 to 2,500 per month

• 90% customer satisfaction rate for live chat channel

Efficiency Improvements

• Cost avoidance of 6-7 FTE for call center if live chat did not exist

• 5% deflection of phone inquiries to live chat

Leveraging Digital Engagement DataGibson’s team is beginning to use information from live chat conversations to stay in touch with potential

customers. Leads generated through live chat are imported into StraighterLine’s Zoho customer relationship

management system, which identifies leads that are good candidates for follow-up communications or other

types of nurture programs.

Information from the LiveEngage platform is also helping the company be more effective in the design of its

website. “Reports from LiveEngage are currently helping us make tweaks to our sites and were instrumental

in the launch of the responsive mobile site,” Foreman states. The team is considering adding LivePerson

Insights to its deployment for automated analysis of conversations that could be used for website design,

process improvements, and even ideas on new courses to add to the company’s catalog.

Impressive ResultsGibson’s seven-person live chat team now averages 2,500 to 3,000 conversations per month. “We’ve extended

our hours until midnight every night, and have four to five live chat agents staffed at our peak times,”

she reports. And post-interaction surveys show a 90 percent satisfaction rate for the live chat channel.

“Our students and prospects love the service,” Gibson says. “It’s the way young people are accustomed to

communicating, and it is an efficient way to get a quick answer to a question.”

An estimated five percent of phone inquiries have been deflected to live chat, but the main benefit is that

the total number of people helped is increasing, and the percentage of inquiries using live chat is going

up. “We’re continuing to grow quickly,” Gibson says. “Over the next year, I expect that our live chat team will

add staff while the call center remains about the same size,” Gibson says. “But if live chat didn’t exist, our call

center staff would need to add six or seven positions.”

Live chat participants have a conversion rate that is 10 percentage points higher than with website visitors

overall. “That’s impressive, but we fully understand that students who go to the trouble of chatting with

us are more likely to convert regardless,” Foreman admits. On that note, Foreman’s team conducted

some analysis and found that those who wanted to chat but missed doing so had a conversion rate of six

percentage points above the overall rate. “This was still somewhat lower than those who got through,” she

says. “So live chat definitely brings a lift in conversions.” The team just recently started tracking conversion

rates for phone support, and Foreman and Gibson are interested in seeing the difference.

– Gemma Gibson, Manager of Student Support, StraighterLine

CUSTOMER SUCCESS StraighterLine

4

About LivePersonLivePerson, Inc. (NASDAQ: LPSN) offers a cloud-based platform that enables businesses to proactively connect in real-time with their customers via chat, voice, and content delivery at the right time, through the right channel, including websites, social media, and mobile devices. This “intelligent engagement” is driven by real-time behavioral analytics, producing connections based on a true understanding of business objectives and customer needs. LivePerson is headquartered in New York City with offices in Atlanta, San Francisco, Santa Monica, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, and Melbourne.

ContactLivePerson, Inc. T: 212.991.1794 475 Tenth Ave F: 212.609.4233 5th Floor info@liveperson.com New York, NY 10018 www.liveperson.com

Learning Best PracticesForeman and Gibson learned many of their best practices as they went along. “One thing I learned is that when hiring new live chat agents,

I should have a conversation with candidates via live chat to gauge their presence on that channel,” Gibson relates. And Foreman adds: “If I had to

do it over again, I would do more traffic analysis before putting together the first schedule for live chat availability.”

These and many more best practices have helped the StraighterLine team transform live chat from an afterthought to a crucial part of their

growing business. “When I inherited the program, I wasn’t sure where it would be a year later,” Foreman observes. “But I’m very proud of what

we’ve been able to do. LivePerson’s great product, with great support from the Customer Success team, has really made it possible.”

1U.S. Department of Education, “Fast Facts,” accessed 12/20/2013.

© 2014 LivePerson, Inc.

“”

If live chat didn’t exist, our call center staff would need to triple in size.

– Gemma Gibson, Manager of Student Support, StraighterLine