Customer Summary
One of the largest public universities in the United States and a leading research institution in Florida, serving a diverse student population of over 60,000 registered students.
The Challenge: Seeking an Efficient Contact Center to Replace an Outdated One
The university had been operating a Cisco voice-only call center for over a decade, which was increasingly inefficient. Students experienced long wait times, with an average hold time of 45 minutes and some exceeding an hour for simple inquiries. Additionally, 38% of calls were dropped, forcing students to call multiple times.
Students also expressed a preference for communication channels beyond traditional voice calls, such as online self-service and SMS options. The university needed a modern contact center solution to improve student experience, enable self-service, and support scalability and innovation.
The Solution: CloudHesive Enables Self-Service and Unifies Communications
CloudHesive’s professional services team collaborated with university leadership, including the Vice President of Student Experience, Chief Information Officer (CIO), and IT Help Desk Manager, to assess existing challenges. A proof-of-concept pilot was initiated with the IT Help Desk, the department handling high call volumes.
Help desk agents and CloudHesive collaborated to document call flows, identify common inquiries, and integrate knowledge-base solutions. Since password resets accounted for most calls, the first phase of the Digital One Stop implementation launched with an automated self-service password reset function.
The university successfully modernized its contact center using Amazon Connect and a suite of AWS services, integrating with ServiceNow and Amazon Lex for AI-powered automation. This enabled students and faculty to access IT support through automated workflows, reducing wait times and improving efficiency.
The full solution included:
- Amazon Connect
- Amazon Q for Connect (Wisdom)
- Amazon Contact Lens
- Amazon Pinpoint
- Amazon Lex, Polly, Kinesis, DynamoDB, Translate, and Transcribe
- Amazon EventBridge and Simple Email Service (SES)
- Amazon S3 for storage
- CloudHesive ConnectPath
- Integration with SalesForce and ServiceNow
Following the success of the IT department’s Digital One Stop deployment, the Vice Provost of Student and Academic Affairs expanded the initiative to the admissions department in preparation for the upcoming student registration period.
Over the next nine months, CloudHesive helped the university transform contact center operations across undergraduate and graduate admissions, alumni development, athletics, and financial aid. This included full CRM and ticketing integration, outbound communications, chat and SMS support, Amazon Q AI-driven customer service, and emergency alert capabilities.
Today, Digital One Stop serves as a centralized collaboration hub, optimizing routing and communication across university departments.
The Benefits: Reduced Hold Times, Increased Collaboration, and Enhanced Student Experience
- 40,000 emails handled per month
- 800,000 call minutes managed per month
- 350 active agents
- Significantly decreased hold times and call abandonment rates
By implementing self-service options, a significant portion of routine inquiries, including password resets, are now handled without live agents, freeing staff to focus on complex issues. This shift has improved student satisfaction, operational efficiency, and overall engagement.
Customer Benefits Summary
✓ Reduction in hold times and abandoned calls
✓ Increased self-service adoption, reducing agent workload
✓ Improved collaboration across university departments
✓ Higher student engagement due to SMS and chatbot integration
AWS Technologies Used
- Amazon Connect
- Amazon Q in Connect
- Amazon Connect Contact Lens
- Amazon Pinpoint
- Amazon Lex
- Amazon Polly
- Amazon Kinesis
- Amazon DynamoDB
- Amazon Translate
- Amazon Transcribe
- Amazon EventBridge
- Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES)
- Amazon S3
CloudHesive Technologies Used
- CloudHesive’s ConnectPath CX
Third-Party Integrations
- Salesforce
- ServiceNow
Industry
- Education
Segment
- Public
Region
North America
This case study demonstrates how CloudHesive helped one of Florida’s largest public universities unify its communications, enhance self-service capabilities, and improve student engagement through Amazon Connect and AWS-powered automation.
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