While Financial Aid was already using the chatbot, Hall and his team were responsible for rolling out Ocelot across scores of offices and programs. They designated key people in each department to take responsibility for building out its knowledge base. Each point person spent just a few hours responding to various questions that the AI uses to “learn” how to reply to users. 

“In less than a week, we had our knowledge bases built out — not perfectly, but enough to get us going,” Hall says. “We launched the chatbot very quickly. From there, we monitored the questions coming in [from users], which prompted us to update our responses and refine those knowledge bases.”

Less than two years later, they don’t spend much time on updates.

“A good rule of thumb is to try to go into the knowledge base at least twice a month to make sure the responses to the questions are still accurate and relevant to our students,” he adds. “But the more [effort] you spend making sure the responses are impactful, [the] more likely students will be able to make use of them.”

Ocelot’s integration with a host of applications and systems allows Bakersfield’s administration to reach students quickly and effectively.

“It’s so easy to pull data,” Achan says. “We work with [phone campaign software] Five9 and Ocelot side-by-side. While they’re on phone calls with students, they can send them information via text or chat. They can also send messages to isolated students or cohorts of students about admissions, registration, financial aid, parking, and other student services.”