As part of its Connected Knowledge programme, Aylesbury Vale District Council (AVDC) has implemented DigitalGenius in Salesforce Service Cloud to bring Artificial Intelligence to its customer service operation. The DigitalGenius AI solution learned from previous council residents’ conversations and is already improving council residents’ response time to queries around services such as council tax, benefit and bin collection.
In an endeavour to reduce the amount of time residents have to wait for their questions to be answered, with the help of DigitalGenius, residents services team members now respond to enquiries within three to five minutes, compared to eight minutes before the DigitalGenius implementation and the system is learning from every interaction.
The introduction of AI has been part of AVDC’s plans since the inception of its innovative Connected Knowledge approach. This strategy was developed to better meet council residents’ demand in addition to the increasing expectation of a 24/7 digital-first experience for residents. Its conception was initiated following the announcement that local councils would no longer receive government grants. This led AVDC to consider how it could keep operating costs at a manageable level and meet the increasing council residents’ expectations by investing in AI-powered systems for the residents’ services team.
Maryvonne Hassall, Digital Strategy Manager, AVDC, said, “Councils need to put citizens’ needs at the centre of their service design to ensure easy access and maximise engagement with the paid services that drive revenue. Consumers expect to be able to engage at their convenience. DigitalGenius is helping AVDC to meet this expectation for our residents and could easily be used by other councils in the same way. Giving connected citizens the tools to engage with us at any time also means our staff can respond to those without internet access or with more complex queries in a more timely manner.”
Mikhail Naumov, Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, DigitalGenius, said, “We believe in the positive benefits of AI for both commercial and public sectors. Both need to leverage state-of-the-art technology to improve customer and resident service operations. Practical use of AI is all about combining human and machine intelligence to create positive experiences for people. We are very proud to be working with the Aylesbury Vale District Council on enabling efficient engagements with their citizens and constituents, while saving time for everyone involved in the conversation. We look forward to seeing more councils and other government organisations follow suit.”