County’s new communications software system is touted as being user friendly and cost-efficient.
Artificial intelligence is coming to Kitsap County’s
governmental offices, but don’t expect R2D2.
The Kitsap County Board of Commissioners on Monday approved
spending $145,000 for a new computerized communications system
designed to help citizens bypass “government speak,” said Bud
Harris, the county’s director of communications in a commissioners’
workstudy meeting last week. In the long run, the system, made by
Microsoft, will not only save the county money, but will help local
residents do business with county offices more efficiently, he
said.
The system, called Citizen Resource Management Contact Center 311,
is based on a customer service business model adapted to government
entities. It’s already being used in large cities like New York,
but Kitsap County will be one of the first smaller governments to
use it.
Eighty percent of public inquiries that now come to the county are
routine requests or repetitive questions that could easily be
managed by a computer or an attendant with access to a bank of
artificial intelligence, said Harris. By routing the public through
this first line of screening, more highly paid employees can focus
on running their departments, thus saving the county money while
getting problems solved more quickly.
“I totally believe in what this can do for local government,” said
Harris.
Harris said, for those with just a little computer savvy, the
computerized system will be much more user friendly than the
current system, and certainly better than taking a stab at county
listings in the phone book.
“Half of us in the county still don’t know what some of those are,”
Harris said. “It’s a whole different language.”
The system is modeled after customer resource management systems
used by many large companies to route questions, orders and
complaints. It applies to Web sites, e-mail and phone systems, but
Kitsap County will start out using CRM 311 with its Web site and
e-mail system only.
For now, county residents won’t be talking to honey-voiced
computerized phone attendants proffering a list of options. Harris
said he wants to take some time to study artificial intelligence
phone systems in other governments before investing in that aspect
of CRM 311, which would cost an additional $50,000.
The first departments to get the system will be Community
Development and Public Works.
In a scenario described by a promotional film shown at Monday’s
meeting, a woman, “Mary,” logs on to a fictitious county Web site
to ask a question. She types in the search field “septic” and gets
a list of frequently asked questions, one of which is what she was
looking for. She also logs a request to have a pothole filled. An
attendant, screening e-mails uses the system to map the pothole,
link her request to others for the same pothole and routes it to
the right employee in the right department. The system
automatically replies to Mary when the request has been
fulfilled.
CRM 311 also has analytical tools to help county officials track
trends and identify issues that need attention.
The Web site and e-mail aspects of the CRM 311 system are expected
to be in place by fall.
