Caswell’s Key Takeaways:
- Contact Centers are mission-centered front doors for government agencies
- Analyzing, orchestrating, and applying data drives speed and accuracy in citizen interactions
- AI is a part of our future, but it will not replace human empathy and judgement.
Let’s be honest; no one enjoys contacting federal government agencies to apply for benefits, access services, or even ask a simple question. Most citizens using federal government services today have memories of long wait times on the phone, web pages that generate more questions than answers, or trying to schedule appointments only to find that there are none available. Bruce Caswell, President and CEO of Maximus, stated that it’s time for citizens to enjoy interacting with their government, and frankly, for federal workers to enjoy the experience too.
Caswell said that Maximus is focused on leading the way when it comes to modernizing the infrastructure that connects citizens to government. Their goal is to create a multimodal platform for citizens to interact with government agencies, using a blend of humanity, technology, and data to resolve inquiries and enable access to services quickly and accurately.
Building a Digital Front Door for Government
Caswell sees the contact center evolving from a transactional hub where citizens go to get answers and get frustrated. The contact centers Maximus is building for federal agencies today are front doors for the government where citizens can interact with and become engaged with the mission. Moreover, the contact center is a place where every interaction is seamless and accurate, with answers or services delivered in a timely manner.
“The Department of Veterans Affairs, and particularly the Veterans Benefit Administration, has a fantastic focus in their service delivery,” shared Caswell in conversation with Francis Rose on Fed Gov Today’s Federal Focus. “If all of the interactions and all of the orchestration of processes and delivery of services isn’t in some way benefiting the veteran, and their interaction with government, then you shouldn’t be doing it. So, beginning with the mission is central.”
But today’s contact centers also serve a second vital purpose: to lay the foundations for continual improvement through data analysis. With each interaction, the data generated can help the agency improve service delivery and mission alignment. This is particularly salient as agencies begin to incorporate AI and automation into contact center workflows.
Customer insights are often where an agency sees that “there are issues that they’re facing in terms of the mission,” explained Caswell. “The simple example would be for the FDA is you had a customer contact center environment where you noted from the data that you’re observing that there are a cluster of calls coming from a certain part of the country where you’re observing related to a particular event or product. You get an early warning that there could be an issue related to food safety.”
AI and the Future of Contact Centers
As is inevitable, Rose and Caswell’s conversation turned to the role that AI plays in contact centers today and the question of what role it will play in the future. Right now, Caswell noted, AI’s role is to assist in streamlining the simplest of interactions, those that ensure that the right information gets to the right person at the right time, and that are compliant with regulatory requirements. But AI needs, and will continue to need, a human in the loop. “I don’t think we’re going to see the end of human interaction within five years, candidly … Other attributes are not as easily replicated like empathy, judgement, and intuition, and the ability to take a call in a direction where you’re … getting to the heart of why the person is calling.”
Getting Future Ready
With so much change coming so rapidly to contact centers, it can seem overwhelming for federal agencies that are not just modernizing technology from five years ago to last for five years into the future. To adapt to a multimodal environment where phone calls connect to chatbots, websites, and agency workers, where data needs to be accurate and move quickly between channels, working with a trusted partner can ease concerns and avoid common pitfalls, delivering long-term success and joy to citizens.
Learn more about contact center modernization here.