Background
Breckland Council, catering to a population exceeding 140,000, faced a customer service challenge of handling a high volume of repetitive inquiries. Breckland Council’s population has a large number of elderly and immigrant residents that prefer voice interactions. To improve cost-effective information delivery to the public via the voice channel that they prefer, they recognized the need for an automated solution and decided to implement virtual agents to their on-premises legacy contact center.
To automate and modernize over-the-top of their Mitel contact center platform, Breckland Council sought AudioCodes to seamlessly integrate voicebots using Ubisend (now Soprano) conversational AI platform.
For more information, visit the Breckland Council website.
Objectives
Breckland Council’s primary objective was to ensure easy access to information for all residents. The council’s introduction of voicebots would allow users to interact with the system using spoken language, making it more accessible and user-friendly for individuals who may have difficulties with typing or reading.
The voice services would need to ensure accurate understanding of customer intents during calls and should be reliable enough to minimize any disruptions or interference in the voice interactions.
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Implement an automated system for general call inquiries into the contact center
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Provide the public with a reliable and easy-to-use voice automated system for frequently asked questions
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Over-the-top innovation of a Mitel on-premises contact center using voice first conversational AI
“AudioCodes was a great advisor and partner for Breckland Council’s contact service automation project. The voicebot service was swiftly deployed without any glitches, staying within the budget, improving constituent service without having to replace our current contact center. The inherent scalability of the solution will allow us to introduce additional services as needed in the future."
AudioCodes VoiceAI Connect Enhances Customer Experience and Lowers Costs with Conversational Voicebots
Ubisend created chatbots for Breckland Council that offered accelerated access to information for Breckland Councils clients. However, to cater to residents who prefer voice communication over text, they reached out to AudioCodes to deliver a voice-enabling solution, namely VoiceAI Connect.
AudioCodes VoiceAI Connect functions as a communication hub that links voice channels using a standardized approach. It expands the capabilities of text-based chatbots to voice communications, enabling seamless integration with any telephony channel. This allows customers to engage in natural conversations with voicebots, providing an immersive audio-centric user experience.
VoiceAI Connect seamlessly integrates any conversational AI platform with any contact center platform, along with essential cognitive voice services like text-to-speech, speech-to-text and voice biometrics, across every voice and telephony channel. It makes it easier for contact centers, like Breckland Councils’, to leverage voice AI technology without having to build everything from scratch themselves.
This solution improves ROI by saving organizations from extensive development efforts, which ultimately accelerated the council’s ability to offer voice services efficiently. Their voicebots allow users to interact with the system using spoken language, making it more accessible and user-friendly for individuals who may have difficulties with typing or reading.
The integration of voice capabilities improve the overall customer experience for residents, enabling them to get the information and assistance they need more efficiently and intuitively. The Breckland Council team saw this as a positive step towards making their contact center services more inclusive and accommodating to diverse communication preferences.
Results
Breckland Council’s voicebot operation went live in the end of Q2, 2023, designed to handle 15-20% of initial calls over the next 18 months, reducing the workload on contact center agents and reducing waiting times and shortening calls for calling residents. The council now plans to scale up the solution to 30 channels with additional future expansions in the pipeline.
The successful collaboration between Breckland Council, AudioCodes, Ubisend and service provider 4Sight resulted in an innovative and accomplished project that significantly enhanced the council’s customer service offerings and streamlined operations, ultimately leading to improved customer satisfaction and a rapid ROI.
The collaborative team plans to encourage other regional councils across the UK with legacy contact centers to embrace AI-driven innovation, in order to improve their CX and contact center efficiency to achieve cost savings and reduce the workload on agents.
