Communication can sometimes be a difficult task, especially when it’s to the public as a local authority. You have a high volume of people who have issues they want to raise, or want follow-ups to issues they have raised in the past. As a local authority, you are responsible for responding to all of these people, and rightly or wrongly, they want their issues dealt with now. At the very least, they want a response, any response. If someone contacts you with a problem, they want to know that you are there, that you will pick up the phone and be there for them. In general, we do rely on others like this, even if they are completely unaware of it, and have concealed expectations of others.

When you add in the volume of contact points like this each day for a local authority, that’s when the pressure begins to build. Staff who manage live public communication have a very difficult job. Imagine one person picks up the phone at 9:15 am and rings your local authority office. They are number 37 in the queue, but they have to speak with you so they wait… and they wait… 50 minutes later, they are now 2nd in the queue. By the time they speak with one of your agents, they are not only upset about the situation they are calling you about, but they are also tired and grumpy from spending so long waiting to talk to them. And traditionally, trying to ring to speak with any public service office means you have a long queue to wait in.

It’s time to get more efficient

This is where live chat can play a role in easing the pressure for your internal staff and communicating with more people in a given day. If someone gave you the option of speaking with one person at a time, or three or more simultaneously, which would you choose? The majority would go with the three or more option, since it means that you reduce the queue of people waiting to speak with you, while juggling three or more conversations at once, making you 300% more productive instantly.

Because of the nature of live chat, your call volume will be reduced drastically, as more people, especially the more tech-savvy crowd, will opt in to use live chat rather than pick up the phone and sit in a queue. So not only are you instantly more productive by using a chat box for website, but your telephone queue will naturally reduce as well. The younger millennials who have stepped into the work force will often prefer a form of text communication rather than speak to someone over the phone as this is the general preference for this demographic. This will benefit this segment of the market and encourage the older generations to follow suit.

What if you could increase your efficiency even more?

Artificial intelligence is the most effective way to virtually eliminate queues altogether. Artie, Click4Assistance’s AI chatbot, is an amazing way to eradicate queues, become ten times more efficient and productive, and increase your customer service satisfaction rate. Artie can speak with an unlimited number of people simultaneously, which means that no one waits in a queue, and he can also ask website visitors if they need assistance, answer basic questions, and even collect data for your internal team, speeding up the process internally as well. Because Artie can speak with people first, he also acts as a buffer, relieving the pressure from your internal customer service agents so they can provide a better quality as well.

Overall, artificial intelligence saves time and money, and improves customer service instantly, while putting your local authority into the “always-online, always responsive” category. An AI chatbot does not sleep, does not get ill or take annual leave and works all the time for you, making them a valuable member of your customer service team.

If you’re interested in deploying Click4Assistance, the UK’s premier GDPR compliant live chat software solution, to increase your local authority’s productivity for 2020, give us a call on 08451235871 or send an email theteam@click4assistance.co.uk and one of our team experts will be with you right away.