Case study: Soffos

Soffos is a tech and software development company that specialises in advanced natural language processing (NLP) applications, enabling businesses and developers to use the low-code Soffos Platform to integrate NLP artificial intelligence (AI) technology into their existing applications or websites with ease.

To achieve this, we carried out a quantitative research campaign in March 2022, two years on from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing shift to online working for many schools and educational institutions. To align with the anniversary of the first UK lockdown, we wanted to position Soffos – and its new product – as the solution to the plethora of issues that students faced in the so-called ‘new normal’ of online lectures and seminars. To do so, we needed to uncover a set of unique insights into what students needed and required from their EdTech solutions.

We commissioned an independent survey of more than 1,000 UK adults, all of whom had completed an academic or professional qualification during the pandemic. The research examined:

• Whether students preferred in-person or online learning
• If online learning was more convenient than in-person learning
• Whether students felt that they had received a poorer quality of education due to the shift to online learning
• How students thought their future career prospects might be impacted by online learning during the pandemic
• What students wanted from their EdTech solutions

Alongside this quantitative research campaign, we secured a series of Q+As and interviews with the CEO of Soffos to discuss the launch of the ‘TestMe’ product, the Soffos brand and to delve deeper into the issues facing students, as well as the EdTech industry more generally.