Using Cloud-Based Virtual Agents to Route Nonemergency Calls
Cloud-based contact center solutions make it possible for jurisdictions to quickly deploy virtual agents. These agents can trigger workflows based on caller prompts, which in turn can get residents connected to the correct nonemergency department without ever speaking to a live person.
A powerful example of this happened in Charleston County, S.C. The county used Amazon Connect to deploy a virtual agent that asks a series of short prompts. If a caller says they found a lost pet, the agent can automatically connect them to animal control.
It sounds simple, but the benefits are profound. The county, which had been struggling to fill 30 to 40 vacant positions, brought its total vacancies down to just two or three. It’s not unusual for counties to have just a handful of call takers handling both 911 and nonemergency calls. According to the most recently available data from the Centers for American Progress, between 23% and 29% of all 911 calls are not for actual emergencies. In many cases, such as in Charleston County, half of all calls are nonemergency calls that can be easily rerouted to a specific department.
Jurisdictions can free up valuable resources and save time by:
- Ensuring nonemergency phone numbers are well publicized on websites, applications, social media channels and other platforms, even if they are using a simple 311 hotline for this purpose.
- Automating nonemergency phone menus by using virtual agents to direct those calls to the correct destination.
Step two is easier with a cloud-based contact center service and, crucially, can reduce live agents’ call volumes, especially in smaller cities and counties where agents split their time between emergency and nonemergency calls.
DIVE DEEPER: AI and cloud contact centers aren’t the only ways to improve citizen experiences.
Leveraging Chat Capabilities to Expedite and Simplify Interactions
Online chat is another channel that jurisdictions use to connect with residents. It’s also another example of a service that can be more easily enhanced and automated with cloud than with proprietary, on-premises deployments.
Chat cannot replace a nonemergency number, but it enhances the ability to offer assistance in multiple languages. For example, I can ask a chatbot on Orange County, N.Y.’s website where I should go to vote in Spanish, and it will answer me in Spanish.
This multilingual, conversational experience is another way that cloud contact centers can lighten their load. Once again, natural language processing and the other technologies underpinning a multilingual chatbot are easiest to access through cloud services.
In the not-too-distant future, we anticipate vendors offering live language translations on calls. The technology is nascent but growing. Live call translations will improve accessibility for non-English speakers who lack access to an internet-connected device at the time they are making a call, or who can only communicate via voice.
EXPLORE: IDP can help with instantaneous language translations, among other things.
Speed, Redundancy and Affordably: A Recipe for Improving Lives
It’s far more challenging for state and local jurisdictions to implement automated chatbots and virtual agents on top of their legacy call center solutions. The cloud makes it so much faster and easier and can reduce deployment time from a matter of months to a matter of weeks or less.
Scale is also an important factor. On-premises contact center solutions often require a three-year lock with specific terms, which complicates additional procurements. With a cloud-based solution, you pay only for what you use, and you can add resources as needed.
Even if you aren’t ready for AI or next-generation contact center services, you can still benefit from cloud contact centers. Crucially, they deliver greater redundancy due to their distributed infrastructure. In South Carolina, the Department of Social Service eliminated all contact center disruptions to its 24-hour child abuse and neglect hotline by switching to Amazon Connect.
The key takeaway to remember is that the minimized disruptions, enhanced language translations and more efficient prioritization of emergency calls are all means to an end: creating more reliable and accessible channels for residents that require services for public safety and their well-being.
Cloud contact center services just happen to be one of the best ways to achieve that goal.
