Government
Alexa Chatbot Integration Cuts Council Enquiries by 85%
From help with bin collection to planning application assistance, residents of Breckland Council are enjoying streamlined support thanks to Soprano’s Alexa Chatbot integration.
Home to 140,000 residents, Breckland Council is a local government area located in Norfolk, England.
Like any government area, Breckland’s population is made up of various demographics, all with different council-related questions that need answering, and all with different means to getting those questions answered.
With only two staff members available to answer residents’ questions, the customer service team at Breckland Council was facing an uphill task.
They didn’t have the resources available to add more staff members to their customer service team, but they also didn’t want residents to have to wait to receive vital information or for their questions to go unanswered.
Thanks to a previous Soprano-powered solution, there was already a council Chatbot in place named Bobbie to help answer the 9,000 or so monthly enquires that came from residents.
But with many residents still opting to pick up the phone to ask questions, Breckland Council were keen to explore the possibility of using voice automation to streamline their customer service processes even further.
Enter, Alexa…
Many of the enquiries Breckland Council were receiving followed a basic question-and-answer model, making them especially well-suited for a voice command solution.
Questions like:
– What days do my bins go out?
– Can I recycle item X?
– When is my council tax due?
Soprano worked with Breckland Council to strategize which chatbot FAQ threads to integrate via voice, enabling residents to ask Alexa questions 24/7 on whatever device they wanted.
We also thought about what happens following a user’s call and introduced a feature that gives residents the option to receive a follow up email of their response so they can refer to it later or share with a neighbour or family member.
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If a resident isn’t sure which days their bins go out, they can simply ask Alexa instead of having to drop what they’re doing and type the question into their phone or laptop.
Alison Webb – Executive Member for Customer and Corporate Services, Breckland Council
Figures for 2023:
– 600 residents using Alexa integration
– 7917 out of 9344 support requests resolved by Bobbie
– 85% overall deflection rate
– 89% peak deflection rate (May)
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Since implementation, the results of our Alexa integration have been two-fold.
On one hand, residents have enjoyed increased accessibility to key information that previously required a human response, and on the other, the customer service team is benefiting from a more manageable workload with time freed up to focus on more complex cases and help those who are impaired or need additional support.
The Alexa integration helped Bobbie resolve 7917 resident enquiries in 2023, scoring a deflection rate of 85% – just shy of Breckland’s Council’s 4-year goal of 90%, 2 years ahead of schedule.
Extra support from a customer service agent is still available to residents, but to date this service has not been required and residents have received all the information they needed either directly from the Alexa integration or by being directed to the relevant page on the Breckland Council website.
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We wanted to enable our residents so they can self-serve wherever possible. Now they can access the information they need at a time that suits them and in a way that is convenient.
Alison Webb – Executive Member for Customer and Corporate Services, Breckland Council
It’s great to see Breckland Council realise the potential of Conversational AI. By closely observing how their residents interact with them, we’ve been able to work together and create a solution that has not only improved CX, but also reduced their customer service teams workload too.
Dean Withey – Director of Conversational AI, Soprano Design
With many Breckland residents asking Alexa about their bin collection schedule, Soprano is already working on the next phase of the integration – a feature that will give residents the ability to set collection reminders so they don’t forget to put their bins out, we’ve all been there…
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