Enhancing the Student Journey: A Qualitative Exploration of Conversational Agents in Higher Education Marketing

Conversational agents are profoundly changing the marketing landscape and the marketing communications strategies of higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK. Another channel has been added to the marketing communications mix of HEIs: prospective students can now communicate with potential universities through the medium of chatbots on websites. HEIs are adapting their student recruitment activities by utilising the new channel to capture the attention of prospective students at the information searching stage of their student journey. This study adopted the social constructionism paradigm. It evaluated the effectiveness of conversational agents at the start of the student journey and investigated the factors leading to successful human–machine interactions, which can improve student experiences. In addition to reviewing the literature on the impact of conversational agents on marketing communications, qualitative data were collected from 24 participants divided into three groups– undergraduate students, postgraduate students and marketing professionals – interacting with conversational agents during task-based, semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis of the data revealed four themes: user experience and interaction, functionality and usability, trust and privacy, and emotional and perceptual aspects. The themes form the core of a conceptual framework that offers practical insights into the design and launch of chatbots used for student recruitment. Theoretical contributions of the research develop understanding and application of the elaboration likelihood model and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 in the context of current artificial intelligence technologies. Recommendations are presented for HEIs embarking on the path of deploying conversational agents in their marketing communications strategies.