United StatesPublic sector2023 – ongoingMissouri Department of Social Services
Virtual agents for SNAP interview scheduling and caller questions
Missouri cut average speed to answer on benefit calls by 70% after virtual agents took over SNAP interview scheduling
Problem
The Family Support Division of Missouri's social services department already had high call volumes before the pandemic. Applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) then rose sharply, and every applicant needed a mandatory interview. Under the old system, staff followed up on appointment requests by hand and checked schedules across about 125 local resource centers.
Approach
The state worked with Google Public Sector and Genesys on an automated contact center. Virtual agents built with Dialogflow check availability across all resource centers and book interviews in person or by phone. Callers can also cancel or reschedule, and the agents answer common questions about the application process. The appointments feed into the Genesys system, which places the calls at the allocated time. Residents can ask for a live agent at any point.
Results
Takeaway
Virtual agents handled about half of the monthly inquiries on their own. That let the department rotate staff between chat and phones to ease burnout from back-to-back calls.
Categories
- Size
- Large enterprise
- Industry
- Public sector
- Business function
- Customer service
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Conversational and voice AI
- Adoption
- Vendor solution
- Evidence
- Vendor case study
Sources
Source summaries
Google Cloud's customer story describes how Missouri's Department of Social Services used Dialogflow virtual agents with Genesys to schedule mandatory SNAP interviews and answer common questions. It reports a 70% reduction in average speed to answer inbound calls. It also reports that about half of 32,000 monthly virtual agent queries were resolved without a live agent. The page carries no date; the Internet Archive first saved it on October 20, 2023.
Full details are in the original sources.