Case Study: Florida SouthWestern State College helps over 10,000 students with Olark live chat

Florida SouthWestern State College serves over 10,000 students via chat with Olark

Florida SouthWestern State College faced an unprecedented challenge when the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to close its campuses in March 2020. The college's IT team needed to quickly find a live chat solution to maintain student and faculty support remotely, replacing in-person and phone services that had wait times of up to an hour. They turned to the vendor Olark for a solution.

Using Olark's extensive API, the IT team built a custom integration with the college's student portal to enable secure single sign-on authentication for students. They also utilized Olark's Groups feature to route inquiries to specific departments like admissions and financial aid. This solution allowed Olark to help the college serve over 10,000 students via chat in the first three months, reducing wait times from hours to minutes and re-establishing critical student services remotely within a week.

Florida SouthWestern State College