Client: Business & Arts South Africa Debut Programme
Business & Arts South Africa Debut Programme
During lockdown, the recruitment of young artists for Business & Arts SA’s Debut Youth programme, seemed impossible. Until we leveraged mobile technology – a WhatsApp Chatbot – resulting in increased inclusivity and accessibility, and 207% more, quality applicants in 25% of time!
Through their strategic partnerships the programme assists artists with everything from ideation to venture implementation, all in their language of choice. They had to record a video and say Hi to the WhatsApp Business Chatbot to start the guided conversation to help them through their entry. Help was always at hand with FAQs and allowing them to “breakout” and chat to a human.
To achieving our strategic objectives of
* INCLUSION (amongst individuals in peri-urban and rural areas and those who are categorised as previously disadvantaged)
* ACCESSIBILITY (reaching people where they are, with the resources they have) and
* COLLABORATION (and partnerships for maximum impact and efficiency)
We believe our Key Success Factors were:
* Using WhatsApp as an easily accessible, low data cost multimedia channel to upload video cost-effectively, giving a fair chance to every applicant.
* The use of more than one language for the application process enabled increased inclusivity, this encouraged applicants to speak in their home languages which improved articulation and expression in the videos.
* The breakout to agent service increasingly improved the customer experience and assisted in eliminating the long wait on email and phone queries on an efficient platform like WhatsApp. It helped the team sift out the targeted people for the programme to ensure that only the right people applied and didn’t have to sift through many unwanted videos.
Case Video: https://vimeo.com/442179061
Awards: Mobile Marketing Association Smarties SA Business Unusual Customer Experience – Bronze Winner
