EPITA: improving the student experience with AI

Founded in 1984, EPITA is a computer science and engineering school recognised for training tomorrow’s digital experts. With campuses in Paris, Lyon, Rennes, Toulouse and Strasbourg, the school now welcomes nearly 4,700 students and awards engineering degrees to 600–700 graduates each year.

Like any service organisation, EPITA handles several hundred interactions with its students every day, covering administrative requests, academic matters, exams, official documents, admissions and campus life.

As student expectations change rapidly, the school has chosen to make the student experience a key differentiator.

“The student experience has become essential. Students now expect the same quality of service they receive in their everyday lives.”
Sylvain Goussot – Director General of EPITA

Why EPITA rethought its relationship with students

Just like customer experience in businesses, the student experience has become a strategic priority for higher education institutions.

At EPITA, students interact daily with a wide range of people and departments: admissions, student administration, academic management, teaching staff and administrative services. These exchanges take place across various channels, from email and phone to Microsoft Teams, Discord, forms and the student portal.

This growing number of contact points made requests harder to track and could lead to gaps in the student journey. The aim was therefore to centralise student interactions, improve collaboration between teams and ensure faster, more consistent responses.

As Sylvain Goussot explains:

“As contact points multiply, some information inevitably gets lost along the way. We wanted to bring everything together to make lasting improvements to the student experience.”

Why EPITA chose Zendesk

To support this transformation, EPITA launched a tender process to select a solution that could address its current challenges and meet its future needs.

Several criteria led to the choice of Zendesk:

A single platform to centralise all interactions.
Built-in AI that can evolve with the school’s needs.
A solution teams could quickly learn to use.
Seamless integration with existing tools.
Advanced collaboration features.
The ability to support the school’s growth.

Choosing a specialist implementation partner was also a deciding factor.

“We wanted to move quickly. Working with an implementation partner helped us reduce project risks and accelerate the rollout.”
Sylvain Goussot – Director General of EPITA

XPCloud: supporting EPITA’s transformation

As a Zendesk Premier Partner, XPCloud supported EPITA from analysing business requirements through to deploying the platform. The work included defining the target system architecture, configuring Zendesk, setting up workflows and helping teams get to grips with the solution.

The project also included training, change management support and preparation for future uses of artificial intelligence.

A single platform to improve the student experience

Zendesk now provides a single entry point for student requests.

Teams have a centralised platform that enables them to:

Track every request.
Collaborate more easily across departments.
Keep a complete history of interactions.
Reduce response times.
Provide a consistent experience for all students.

Zendesk’s collaboration features also make it easy to escalate requests to the appropriate level of expertise directly within Microsoft Teams, ensuring continuity throughout the student journey.

AI that supports students without AI that supports students without replacing people

At EPITA, artificial intelligence is not intended to replace staff.

Its main role is to automate the handling of straightforward requests, giving staff more time to focus on situations that require personalised support.

With Zendesk AI, students benefit from round-the-clock support, with immediate answers to frequently asked questions and easier access to information. This approach makes it possible to automate simple requests with AI, while leaving situations that require personalised support to the teams.

Meanwhile, staff save valuable time on repetitive tasks.

“Our aim is not to reduce staff numbers. We simply want to give our teams more time to focus on interactions where they can add the most value.”
Sylvain Goussot – Director General of EPITA

Very encouraging early results

Just a few weeks after going live, the platform was already delivering promising results.

Key figures

4,700 students are already using the platform.
72 staff members handle requests in Zendesk.
839 requests were logged in the first month.
16% of enquiries are already handled by artificial intelligence.

The most frequent requests concern administrative documents, including enrolment and attendance certificates and academic transcripts. These requests are now processed faster, improving both the student experience and the day-to-day work of administrative teams.

Looking ahead

EPITA now aims to further expand its knowledge base to gradually increase the proportion of requests that can be handled by artificial intelligence.

The school is also considering extending the platform to prospective students during the admissions process and improving the teaching staff’s experience. In the longer term, Zendesk is intended to become a cornerstone of the student experience.

“Our ambition is for Zendesk to become a cornerstone of the student experience: a tool that can meet students’ needs while continuously measuring the quality of their experience so we can keep improving it.”
Sylvain Goussot – Director General of EPITA

Behind the project: watch the Zendesk Showcase session

At the Zendesk Showcase, Sylvain Goussot, Director General of EPITA, and Julien Jardin, co-founder of XPCloud, shared the story behind this transformation project.

Watch the recording to discover: