Citizen Contact Center | Government Contact Center

The need of citizens to access Government institutions for information and guidance is as old as the Government itself. In the modern society, there is a myriad of services offered and facilities run by the various levels of Government. Without the citizens’ ability to easily find information about them, they are wasted.

But how can citizens get that information? It used to be in only one way – get the telephone directory and try to understand which of the hundreds of Government offices can give you the information you are looking for. Then, a few phone calls later, and after you wasted lots of your time and government employees’ time, hopefully you had your answer.

Or, if you could not figure it out, you can take the easy way – call the only number you know it will be always answered, the Emergency number (911 in the USA). It is clearly not the right thing to do, but still something that does happen quite often. Result – unnecessary congestion of the Emergency line.

In the last few years, the Government institutions added information on the Web, but even with the assumption of Internet access, the same problem remains – how do I get in touch (speak, chat, e-mail, whatever ..) with somebody who can really understand my request and provide me with the right information and guidance?

Out of the above requirements, the Citizen Contact Center was born! In several cities in the USA, the 311 service - single number information – was implemented. In some countries like U.K., central Government directives for “social inclusion” were issued requiring that public services are made more accessible to citizens.

The Generalist Implementation

In many cases the Citizen Contact Centers are implemented using traditional concepts. The set-up is a voice PBX or ACD and PCs with access to several databases. The people that answer the calls are dedicated Agents that have been trained to search into the various databases and provide information – in most cases the phone number of the institution that should be called.

Did we make progress? Yes, we did, but not much. This type of service is not much more than an “assisted search”. In most cases, the citizen still will have to call the phone number given, explain (again) what he/she is looking for, etc.

The Specialist Implementation

The Specialist Implementation follows a powerful trend that is developing in many environments – including Government. The concept is simple - requests for information should be routed to individuals that have the right skills and knowledge to provide the right answers.

How this implementation is different from the traditional one?
Radically! Let’s assume that I want to renew my driving license. In the first case, I will talk with a polite person that will give me the phone number where to call and inquire. In the second case I will talk with a “Specialist” that will know everything about how I can renew my license.

Are we saying that each Government institution needs to set-up its own Contact Center.
No, what are we saying is that each Government institution needs to be able to receive contacts routed to the right people, who are not dedicated agents, but employees that also respond to citizens’ inquiries.

How do the right employees get the right contacts?
The Citizen Contact Center is built as a large Virtual Contact Center. All the employees that have among their tasks to answer citizens’ inquiries are defined as “agents” in the system. They have associated to them the skills that define which contacts should be routed to them. They log in and log out in the system according to their work schedule.

How does the citizen contact the center?
In the same way as in the traditional implementation. The citizen will call a number (say 311), access via the Web or send an E-mail. A “front end” of dedicated agents will answer the calls or process the contacts. If they cannot provide the full answer, they will assign the right “skills” and resubmit to the system. The system will then route the contact to the right specialist.

Implementation Example

A County Local Council in the UK had implemented a Citizen Contact Center using a British Telecom l system based upon CosmoCom technology. They decided for a “horizontal implementation” that would take care of all departments from day one. Similar to the 311 approach taken in New York City and other North American cities, they deployed a single call center to front end all departments and field inquiries from all callers. And while they didn’t opt for a single number like 311, they did consolidate the existing 200 plus numbers into 14, taking care to forward all of the old numbers into the new ones. While they could have consolidated all the numbers into a single number, they decided that using the dialed number as routing qualifier was more “user accepted” than using IVR as a routing qualifier. And even if a caller calls the wrong number, there is no need to redial another number, as all numbers lead to the same call center.

The majority of the agents were split into two groups: One group handled regular inquiries directed to 11 of the phone numbers, while the other group handled higher priority social care calls directed to 3 of the phone numbers. Note that the system is virtual, and not all agents are physically located in the same place.

To make the agents generalists, they equipped them with a general information database, which, after three months of operation, enabled them to answer 60% of the inquiries directly. Of the remaining 40% of inquiries, the majority were quickly and efficiently escalated to the right specialist agents. The specialist agent would receive the transferred call with all relevant data that was already collected by the generalist, reducing or eliminating the need for the caller to re-explain himself or herself. A small percentage of inquiries are transferred to specialists that are not agents on the system using external numbers.

The implementation of the two tier generalist/specialist system was fast and easy and the citizens response overwhelmingly positive. Also extremely positive was the reaction of the various departments – the amount of irrelevant calls or trivial inquiries that caused major work disruption dropped significantly.

Looking further to the future, the Local Council would like to establish a partnership with other government departments including fire, police and ambulance services that will enable to better pass calls back and forth. They believe that a virtual system where all the government bodies can be contacted is the ultimate future of the Citizen Services Contact Center

The Technology Requirements

There are many ways in which a “Specialist implementation” can be achieved, but there are several “must” technology requirements:

1. Location independency of agents and flexibility in terms of device used
2. Multi-channel handling (voice, E-mail, chat, Web, video)
3. Flexible skills-based routing - any number of skills, any combination, primary and secondary skills.
4. Ability to transfer contacts (not just calls) from one agent to another without losing any information collected by the first agent
5. Ability to resubmit contacts (not just calls) to a queue without losing any information collected by the agent
6. Multi-tenancy, i.e. ability to define a portion of the system (tenant) self-managed
7. Comprehensive management reporting to include both dedicated agents and part-time specialist agents.

The above requirements would have sound as “wishful thinking” only a few years ago. With the advent of the IP based Contact Centers, these requirements can be now met.

In a CosmoCall Universe implementation, the agents’ location is totally irrelevant – they can login and logout from any PC. All they need is an IP connection. Alternatively, they can also be defined as “phone only agents” using a regular (or mobile) phone to receive calls. They still can login from any location and specify the phone number where they can be reached.

CosmoCall Universe handles contacts from all channels (voice, E-mail, chat, web, etc.) in the same manner – the same contact flow, the same skill based routing, the same reporting and management. The contacts are being submitted to the agents according to priority in a unified queue. During login, agents can define which types of contact media they will handle.

CosmoCom pioneered the concept that each contact has a packet of data associated to it, and this data will be transferred and made available whenever the contact is transferred to another agent, to a queue or to an application. This capability is fundamental to the “Specialist implementation”.

CosmoCom has also pioneered and is today the undisputed leader in Multi-tenant Contact Center technology. It enables any number of tenants to share the same platform and “feel” like they have their own system, with full management and control.

The Hard Questions

How about the cost of the call transfers?
As the call enters the system, it is immediately converted into VOIP. If it needs to be transferred, it is done in VOIP domain, through redirecting the call. Therefore there is no additional cost.

How about the cost of software licensing with this large number of “specialists”?
This is indeed a different situation than in a traditional Call Centers where the agents are “in call” most of the time. In this case the “specialists” are logged-in for long periods of time, but in call only short periods. For this cases, CosmoCom is offering flexible licensing based upon the actual “in call” time.

How can the quality of the service be monitored?
CosmoCall Universe offers several quality-monitoring tools, such as whispering, barge-in, etc. In addition, it has a built-in integral recording capability for all channels

Is the sharing of the platform a true and tested configuration?
There is a global trend in offering software applications as services, as it has many cost and operational advantages. The requirements related to self-management and data security have been fully implemented in CosmoCall Universe. Contact Center as service, based upon CosmoCall Universe is being offered by some of the largest Service Providers in the world.

The Future...

There is major change in customer interaction happening all over the globe. The old paradigm used to be “my company has a call center to service our customers”. The new paradigm is “my company IS the call center so that we can better service our customers”.

The above applies to Government services as well.