ICS.AI and NTT Collaboration: Revolutionising Council Services With Phone-based AI Technology
As a leader in artificial intelligence solutions for the public sector, ICS.AI have partnered with global technology services provider NTT, to develop and implement an innovative voice AI system that enhances council services for local residents. By integrating AI-driven technology with existing call centre services, this collaboration leads to a substantial reduction in call wait times and improved overall efficiency.
In England, councils are responsible for providing municipal services to their residents, and a significant percentage of interactions still occur over the phone. The introduction of our SMART Phone voice AI technology has successfully addressed the challenges of high call volumes and limited resources, streamlining communication processes and enabling call centre agents to focus on complex queries where human contact remains crucial.
Our collaboration with NTT has enabled the seamless integration of AI technology into existing call centre infrastructure, providing residents with a more efficient and satisfying experience. Our partnership highlights the value of combining AI language models with cloud and voice systems to revolutionise local government services and enhance overall communication processes.
Using voice AI to help human call centre agents do more
Our SMART Phone voice AI platform addresses the common communication challenges faced by local government councils, which often receive a high volume of questions and calls without sufficient resources to answer them all efficiently. Despite the availability of council websites for residents to find answers to common questions, such as paying council tax or waste collection schedules, 60% of interactions still occur via the phone channel.
In England, councils are responsible for providing municipal services to their residents, and a significant percentage of interactions still occur over the phone. The introduction of our SMART Phone AI has successfully addressed the challenges of high call volumes and limited resources, streamlining communication processes and enabling call centre agents to focus on complex queries where human contact remains crucial.
Our collaboration with NTT has enabled the seamless integration of AI technology into existing call centre infrastructure, providing residents with a more efficient and satisfying experience. Our partnership highlights the value of combining AI language models with cloud and voice systems to revolutionise local government services and enhance overall communication processes.
The ICS.AI language model, specifically trained for public sector applications, powers conversational AI across channels. Through working with two UK councils to successfully power the chatbot on their websites, where it has been proven to answer 85% of questions correctly on first attempt, they saw the opportunity to take the technology further and implement an AI powered phone assistant as part of their contact centre to assist the 240,000 residents in their municipal area. Receiving around 4,000 voice calls per month, the councils sought to integrate the assistant with their existing call centre to enhance the quality of service provided to residents and better utilise their agents' time. For the voice assistant to be implemented and used successfully, it needed to integrate seamlessly with the existing call centre.
"We chose NTT as our partner because they excel in guiding customers through the complexities of cloud migration, helping them understand and mitigate risks. Once the customer's infrastructure is in place, we can seamlessly deploy our AI-driven SMART Phone solution. With NTT, our customers benefit from a trusted partner who truly understands the intricacies of cloud migration and ensures the flawless integration of our phone AI assistant with their call centre infrastructure."
Andrew Smith - CCO, ICS.AI
Transformation
Enabling conversational AI through telephony and cloud services
Having already successfully deployed Conversational AI across channels to many councils in the UK, we partnered with NTT to help leverage their expertise in provisioning voice services to ensure the phone AI assistant was able to deliver a seamless experience to residents. The ultimate goal of the phone-based AI is to provide as good an experience through AI as if a resident was talking to a human. The assistant had to seamlessly integrate with the councils’ existing contact centre solution, which used telephony from another service provider. The assistant also relies on an ultralow-latency connection to the cloud to prevent processing delays when it is asked a question. Working together with NTT, we ensured the councils had access to a suite of managed voice services that enabled them to take maximum advantage of the AI-driven services.
For the first phase of the project, the assistant was trained to answer certain questions about the councils’ services only. At launch, around 2,500 calls were routed through the assistant every month. It was able to answer 50% of questions correctly first time, using the pre-trained language model material. The change in user behaviour during the first phase of the project has accelerated the assistant's training for further council services. Update: Read the latest insights as featured in Open Access Government publication (15/09/23).
Expanding availability
and reducing agent
pressure
By seamlessly integrating our AI-driven phone assistant with NTT's voice services, councils can address a higher volume of queries while easing the burden on human agents.
Improved customer experience
The 24/7 availability of the assistant eliminates wait times for callers and ensures prompt responses to their questions.
Streamlined constituent assistance
The assistant enables councils to provide accurate information quickly, allowing more residents to efficiently access and utilise council services.
Seamless support
Residents enjoy a unified call centre experience with minimal delays, as the assistant operates on the same level as human interaction through cloud connectivity.
Discover the benefits for your organisation
Unlock the potential of AI-driven phone assistant technology to transform your communication processes and enhance customer experience. Get in touch with us today to learn more about SMART Phone and how it can revolutionise your services.