Building a better citizen experience with contact center modernization strategies

Government contact center operations have long been stretched thin by escalating pressure to control bottom-line costs. But the effects of the pandemic — and the subsequent unemployment and health crisis — showed many government leaders that their agency contact centers were not prepared to meet the surge in citizen needs.

Modernizing contact center operations with cloud-enabled infrastructure promises a more agile approach in the face of crisis or surge events, according to a new report, produced by Scoop News Group, and underwritten by TTEC.

Read the full report.

Moreover, by moving contact centers away from legacy infrastructure, agencies can integrate automation and ai-enabled tools that connect the front-end citizen interactions with other downstream workflow processes at the agency.

The report describes how agencies, like the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services (DWS), deployed cloud and automation technology to deflect calls from at-capacity systems. Additionally, they were able to use an intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) to provide rapid answers to routine questions, resulting in a 24% decrease in call frequency.

TTEC’s Director of Public Sector, Ryan Haywood explains that injecting a layer of digital interaction with the agency before connecting to a live agent is one of the most effective ways agencies have found to streamline surges in requests. That is achieved by incorporating new communication channels such as text messaging, chatbots and other automation tools to make interactions more efficient.

By integrating automation technology, agency contact centers have been able to reduce operations costs, improve employee and constituent satisfaction and provide greater agility to react to surge events, according to Amber Rosebaugh, director of government technology strategy for TTEC.

“When an agency automates the back-end processes, response times also accelerate for the citizen,” she explained.

Read more about FedRAMP-authorized contact center solutions that are designed to deliver better citizen experiences. 

This article was produced by FedScoop and StateScoop and sponsored by TTEC.