Self-Service Applications Improve Customer Service Interactions

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

The Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department (WASD) is an around the clock, year-round operation. It has become vital that WASD educate and engage our customers through the latest technological advancements available on the market. Two such technological initiatives that WASD has recently debuted are a self-service application and IBM’s Watson, supercomputer. Both give customers 24-hour access to their billable charges with greater detail, historical consumption, and many other interactive features. While this information has always been available, customers were limited to obtaining it at one of three walk-in offices or would have to call the Customer Service Call Center which is open from 8 am – 7 pm Monday through Friday. By introducing these interactive, personalized, self-service features the department has facilitated access to customers’ bills in greater detail, along with the option of requesting many of the departments core services, now 24 hours a day. In less than 12 months more than 120,000 customers have visited the Department’s self-service site and more than 4,800 have directly interacted with the IBM Watson solution via a chat, know to customers as AVA (Automated Virtual Assistant). With the ever-growing advancements in technology, which continues to make access to information more readily available, and the demand of nearly 2.3 million customers in the WASD service area, keeping up with customers’ expectations for services and information continues to be a challenge that the Department is dedicated to meeting.