Telford & Wrekin Council launch the next evolution of its automated assistant

Telford & Wrekin Council has launched the next innovative evolution of Ask Tom, its automated assistant, that now answers the phone, listens and speaks and can send information directly to customers devices.

The new addition, known as Ask Tom Telephony, builds on the council’s Ask Tom digital assistant that was launched in 2021. During the first twelve months, that system cut customer waiting times by 50 per cent, whilst answering over 13,000 residents’ queries and providing over 100 services 24 hours a day.

Now, Tom is on the phone and can speak too, and help in even more ways!

The new system understands and responds to callers’ spoken enquiries, providing quick, simple answers to queries from an extensive knowledge base, and send links and other information directly to the customer’s own device, if they wish.

Ask Tom can handle multiple questions in one call about a wide range of issues, so customers don’t have to call other numbers for specific information. With Ask Tom now able to deal effectively with even more routine enquiries and requests, the Council’s Customer Contact Centre staff can focus on handling the more complex issues that callers have.

Callers will find that menu systems have been removed, but the system is still underpinned by real people, so customers can get through to a human advisor easily if they need to.

Councillor Zona Hannington, Telford & Wrekin Council’s Cabinet Member for Finance, Governance and Customer Services, said: “Ask Tom is already a great example of how we’re using innovative technology in local government to improve the customer experience in our contact centre, boost service delivery and increase residents’ satisfaction.

“This exciting evolution of the system means Ask Tom can now understand and respond to a wide range of customer queries and send the information direct to customers phones if they want. By using technology to handle these relatively simple queries, we enable our staff to concentrate on more important issues, meaning we can help more people, more rapidly. It makes us more efficient and more effective for our residents, who can now access a wider range of council services 24 hours a day.

“The new automated assistant feature is built on an extensive knowledge base of council information that’s been widely tested, so it can provide information and send links, with information that’s accurate, relevant to our local area and specific to the enquiry or issue.”

Before launching the new feature, Telford & Wrekin Council’s Mystery Customer Panel trialled the system and were impressed by how easy it was to use.

One panel member said: “Sounds very polite, clear, great tone and certainly beats waiting in a queue when you can get taken to the correct page from your phone”, whilst another added: “Voice Tom appears to be very effective and easy to use”.