Business Platform
Doubtnut
Increasing learner engagement with a fast, easy to use interface in WhatsApp
Brand
WhatsApp Business Solution Provider
When educational platform Doubtnut discovered that a significant percentage of people experienced difficulties fully accessing its app, it adapted its services through WhatsApp to offer a lighter, more streamlined experience that drove higher rates of engagement.
224%
approximate increase in daily users in less than one year
260%
increase in learner engagement with WhatsApp
95%
percent user satisfaction rate
1.8M
daily messages to learners through WhatsApp
*Results are unique and are provided by the featured business. Success story results will vary, as they depend on a variety of factors.
Their Story
First-in-class technologies
Doubtnut is a leading educational platform in India that uses image recognition technologies to provide solutions to STEM questions. The platform supports students’ local languages and matches the text of a question to a database of pre-recorded videos, so students can get the answers they need to keep their studies moving ahead. The Doubtnut platform also features live classes and prep sessions for students taking regional board exams.
Their Goal
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Helping learners reach top of the class
Many Doubtnut users live in economically underserved cities, lacking access to smartphones and data plans that can support the Doubtnut app interface. For all the users who uninstalled the app the same day they downloaded it, Doubtnut needed a faster, easy to use way to keep people engaged.
Their Solution
Virtual assistant provides instructions to ask a question
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A+ engagement and learner retention
For students across India, mastering lessons in math and science is the pathway to passing regional state boards and eventually earning a higher paying position in a STEM career. Supporting those students as they prepare for exams is the mission of Doubtnut, a subscription-based education technology platform used by 2.5 million learners. If a student needs guidance with a STEM-related question, they can snap a photo of the question and upload it to the Doubtnut website or app, where sophisticated optical character recognition matches the query to pre-recorded content in the Doubtnut database.
Whether a student needs insight into the interaction between two chemicals or an explanation of antimatter, they’ll get a video answering their question from Doubtnut in 10 seconds. Doubtnut has built a reputation for accessibility and innovation through outstanding services like offering live classes and exam prep for the state curriculum in the native languages in regions—unlike other e-learning platforms in India, which are limited to less interactive coursework delivered only in English.
However, many Doubtnut users come from economically underdeveloped “Tier 2” cities in India, without access to smartphones or data plans capable of handling the app’s heavier interface. To keep these learners from dropping out for good, the Doubtnut team needed a fast, efficient way to maintain contact. With WhatsApp as one of the most popular communications channels in India, particularly with younger people, the Doubtnut team worked with conversational messaging provider Gupshup to develop a chatbot powered through WhatsApp Business Platform.
The chatbot retains the core functions of the Doubtnut platform, with a streamlined, easier-to-use interface. A student stumped on a question about the third law of thermodynamics can send their question via WhatsApp and receive links to five solution videos, with options in 11 different languages, in only 10 seconds.
Acing learner engagement means connecting as many young minds as possible with resources to advance in their education and eventual earning potential. Doubtnut launched an aggressive marketing campaign promoting its new WhatsApp channel. In only 45 days, the number of questions Doubtnut received skyrocketed from 30,000 to 80,000 a day. Even users who uninstalled the app could return to Doubtnut, enjoying a more seamless and continuous experience.
“The flexibility we gained in adopting our WhatsApp channel drove phenomenal growth in engagement. In less than a year, we’ve been sending an average of 1.8 million messages to learners each day. With WhatsApp, learners from all backgrounds can engage with us without worrying about device constraints.”
Amar Srivastava
Vice President of Product Management
“The flexibility we gained in adopting our WhatsApp channel drove phenomenal growth in engagement. In less than a year, we’ve been sending an average of 1.8 million messages to learners each day,” says Amar Srivastava, Vice President of Product Management. “With WhatsApp, learners from all backgrounds can engage with us without worrying about device constraints. We’ve seen that 60 percent of the learners who send questions via WhatsApp will keep interacting, sometimes even up to 130 days at a time.”
During a two-month campaign to deepen awareness about WhatsApp, Doubtnut teams saw a 260 percent spike in engagement among learners who only wanted to use WhatsApp.
The powerful response from learners has inspired Doubtnut to create new ways of helping students retain their learning. Through APIs designed by Gupshup, the bot can also follow up with students who have received their five solution video links by inviting them to take a 10-question quiz testing their knowledge. With the speed of WhatsApp, the student gets their results in real-time, and, if need be, can ask follow-up questions. Students are excited by the new ways of using WhatsApp, giving a 95 percent satisfaction rating.
“Behind each of our learner interactions is a student gaining the knowledge to better their position in life. Using WhatsApp, we’ve increased daily active users by almost 224 percent, and that’s a lot of tomorrow’s innovators,” says Srivastava. “Everything we do is about becoming India’s leader in digital learning. WhatsApp is getting us there one message at a time.”
Working with collaborator Gupshup, Doubtnut is continuing to work toward even better learner outcomes. “As part of our commitment to partner with Doubtnut in enriching learner experiences, we've ensured that our solution carefully and continuously monitors the chatbot's performance for the reliability and sustainability learners need to grow," says Ravi Sundararajan, Chief Operating Officer, Gupshup. "With the robust data and analytics we have in place, we are continuing our work with Doubtnut to implement a commerce element into the platform."
The Doubtnut team is seeing potential to help regional governments across India use WhatsApp as an end-to-end education platform, seamlessly delivering notes, course content, and schedules—or even conducting assessments. That’s a lot of future learning moments for students.
Virtual assistant prompts a “personal study buddy” video overview
Their Success
In less than a year of adopting WhatsApp, Doubtnut saw a 1,000 percent spike in daily users and sent an average of 1.8 million messages to its excited learners.
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Increase in users and engagement
- Nearly 224% increase in daily users in less than one year
- 260% increase in learner engagement with WhatsApp in less than one year
- 95% percent user satisfaction rate
- 1.8 million daily messages to learners through WhatsApp
*Results are unique and are provided by the featured business. Success story results will vary, as they depend on a variety of factors.
“Behind each of our learner interactions is a student gaining the knowledge to better their position in life. Using WhatsApp, we’ve increased daily active users by 224 percent, and that’s a lot of tomorrow’s innovators. Everything we do is about becoming India’s leader in digital learning. WhatsApp is getting us there one message at a time.”
Amar Srivastava
Vice President of Product Management
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