Improving Local Government Contact Centre Experiences

Erin Wilson at Five9 explores how to improve local government contact centre experiences.

Managing municipal services at the population scale can be quite a challenge.

• How do your constituents want to communicate with you?
• Does every citizen prefer to communicate over the same channel?
• Will your population remember the guidance you provided on how best to communicate?
• When residents do reach out, are your teams enabled to handle the requests they receive?
• Do support agents really need to work out of an office to be effective?

With the right partner, and the right technology, such concerns become a thing of the past.

Simplified, Individual Experience

Consider Amy, who lives in the city with her family. Her aging mother, Barb, lives nearby. When it comes to dealing with the state and local governments, Amy looks after the needs of both households.

One day, Amy’s mom called to complain about her water bill. Amy investigated it, discovered a leak, and called a plumber to get it taken care of. Amy also learned about a program with the county that allows for a partial refund in cases like these and suggested Barb call the number on her bill to begin the process.

Much to Barb’s surprise, the water department front-ended their phone system with a Five9 Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) which delivered Barb a personally tailored experience. This municipality integrated to their Five9 with their CRM, so the IVA could more intelligently serve their community.

Here’s how the call went:

IVA – Thank you for calling the county water department, Barb. I see that you are currently participating in five municipal services and are eligible for seven more. Would you like to discuss an existing service, a new service, or something else?

Barb – I’m calling about an existing service.

IVA – Great. You are currently enrolled in services from library, property taxes, voter registration, water, waste pickup. Which are you calling about?

Barb – My water.

IVA – Okay, water. I can help you “schedule a meter read,’ with “problems with your service,” “billing” questions, or if something else, say “something else.”

Barb – Billing.

IVA – Okay billing. Our records show your bill went up more than 100% from your last billing cycle; let me get you to someone who can help.

Only the options related to the services that Barb is eligible for, or use, are presented to her. This keeps the menus short and most importantly, relevant.

When the call is transferred to an agent, they are automatically presented with the context they need to pick up where IVA left off and service Barb’s inquiry.

Via a screen pop, an agent at the municipality sees Barb’s billing history, and is automatically presented with a knowledge base article that helps him explain the refund program. Per her request, the agent texts Barb the address she needs to mail the forms to, and a link to further instructions.

It was so easy, Barb didn’t need to call her daughter for help.

Channel of Choice

Meanwhile, Amy is trying to figure out if she needs a permit to fix the fence that got damaged during a recent storm. She went online and saw a button to get help with county services.

Again, because of their thoughtful, integrated implementation of Five9, they determined her existing fence was permitted and was exempt from needing a permit to restore it to its original condition. Easy peasy.

At the same time, Amy’s daughter (and animal-lover), Kate, wanted to inquire about a stray cat program she saw, so she went online to discuss some feral felines in the area. Luckily, her city appreciates that people prefer to interact on channels as diverse as they are; they use Five9 to offer residents a choice of chat, social, email, voice, and visual self-service.

Kate uses video to show the city employee the cat in question. Since there’s no sign of ear clipping, the agent approves the procedure and offers to make the appointment for her. But Kate needs to ask her mom for a ride, so she requests a text with her pre-approval code and a link to make the appointment online; the agent complies easily.

This municipality delivered personalized service to three generations of citizens each on the channel of their choice.

Tomorrow is here; your citizens expect more; isn’t it time we deliver results?