AI-enhanced Citizen Experience

The AI within Liberty Converse provides an intelligent triage layer, serving as the first point of contact for all resident interactions. Using advanced natural language processing, it understands resident queries expressed in their own words, so now, residents don’t need to navigate long menus or use specific council terminology. The system categorises requests by both service area and urgency, then routes them to appropriate resources or specialist teams. It can provide immediate responses for common enquiries, giving residents faster service.

Through automated service direction, the AI actively guides residents to relevant online services and self-service options so that can resolve their needs immediately. This intelligent guidance reduces call volume for routine enquiries which can now be completed digitally. Liberty Converse can recognise when residents can be better served via self-service channels, and this increases overall efficiency without compromising the personal touch that residents enjoy.

The predictive routing capabilities means that the system continuously learns from interaction patterns, enabling it to anticipate resident needs. This learning enables the AI to optimise routing decisions for faster resolution times. Trending issues are identified before they become widespread problems, allowing the council to take proactive steps. It also helps to ensure that similar queries are handled consistently and efficiently.

Continuous monitoring through the AI system provides comprehensive data-driven insights that were previously unavailable to the council. The system generates real-time performance metrics, identifies service demand patterns, and tracks customer satisfaction indicators alongside operational efficiency measurements. This wealth of data enables evidence-based decision making and allows the Council to continuously refine their service delivery approach based on actual resident behaviour and needs rather than assumptions.

Another key ambition was to implement a “golden number”, making all council services accessible through one contact point. This single point of access makes it simple for residents trying to figure out which department to contact. And internally, it significantly streamlines operations.

Since rolling out Liberty Converse, Tewkesbury is making use of the analytics provided in Liberty Converse. This helps with identifying trends, measuring performance and continuous refinement. These insights on call volumes, detail on reason for call, time waiting, reason for abandonment and much more, are transforming how customer care is handled.

It is also documenting the remarkable improvements that the team are achieving, such as halving call wait times due to enhanced call routing and reducing abandoned calls by 17% due to shorter queues.

The team has recorded a 38% shift to online services, driven by automated options and streamlined call flows. This growing ability to understand resident intent and direct enquiries appropriately is transforming how citizens interact with the council, making services more accessible and efficient.

They can now analyse the spread of interactions with residents – in the initial three months since deploying Converse, the Team dealt with over 90,000 interactions, with inbound phone calls still represent the largest volume at roughly two-thirds, followed by emails at 21%. Live-to-agent chats were only recently launched and is expected to see significant growth potential with more services signposted to webchat as residents become more familiar with this option.

The seamless integration between Liberty Converse and Citizen Hub is unifying customer experience: Liberty Converse addresses inbound contact promptly, while Citizen Hub surfaces citizen details and case histories on record, to offer a more personalised and informed engagement. For instance, when customers get through to an agent, the system automatically triggers customer pop-ups, allowing agents to instantly access any relevant details on the resident, both current and historic.

As the agents are now much more informed, they can provide more efficient and personalised responses. And the time that used to be spent searching for customer information, is now put to effective use helping more customers.

The Garden Waste Renewal process is a great example of the integration of Citizen Hub, powered by Liberty Create, and Liberty Converse. With nearly 20,000 customers for the service, the renewal process represents one of the Customer Care Team’s busiest periods. The team took an iterative approach, with an online renewal application built in Citizen Hub with integrations into Converse. More than 80% of residents renewed online. A new dashboard was introduced for the Customer Services Team, providing useful information on the number of renewals and when customers are likely to receive their sticker packs. This helped the customer services team to better manage the contact over the phone.