Case Study: StraighterLine achieves 2,500% increase in monthly chats and a 10 percentage-point conversion lift with LivePerson LiveEngage

Engaging with Students to Build an Affordable Education

StraighterLine, a fast-growing provider of affordable, self‑paced college courses founded in 2008, needed a better way to engage prospective and current students—especially mobile users—and improve conversion and satisfaction. Their existing LivePerson chat was underused, handling about 100 conversations a month and staffed ad hoc by call‑center personnel.

By hiring dedicated chat agents and optimizing LivePerson LiveEngage with rules‑based targeting, proactive invites, mobile chat on a responsive site, and CRM integration, StraighterLine scaled chat to 2,500–3,000 conversations/month. The channel now achieves 90% satisfaction, a conversion rate 10 percentage points higher than overall visitors, deflects about 5% of phone inquiries, and avoided the need to add an estimated 6–7 call‑center FTEs.

StraighterLine

Gemma Gibson

Manager of Student Support, StraighterLine