Award-Winning Non-Emergency Call Routing System Reduces Hold Times, Prioritizes Emergency Calls

In April 2024, the City of Virginia Beach Information Technology department worked with Emergency Communications & Citizen Services to implement the City’s first public-facing artificial intelligence solution — a call diversion tool called Amazon Connect.  

The main goal of the implementation was to reduce the number of non-emergency and informational calls managed by live agents who are also answering higher priority 911 calls, and in turn reduce hold times for non-emergency line callers and increase the availability of agents for true emergency calls. 

On Sept. 13, the City of Virginia Beach Information Technology department was recognized for its implementation of Amazon Connect with a Commonwealth Technology Award at the Commonwealth of Virginia Innovative Technology Symposium (COVITS). These awards recognize state agencies and localities for successful public sector IT projects that improve government service and efficiency. 

How does Amazon Connect work? 

Residents can dial the City’s non-emergency line, 757-385-5000, and request help in their own words, and the natural language processing of the system can quickly answer their question directly, transfer them to a live agent for help, or send them relevant data or forms via text message. 

Prior to implementation, a data collection trial was held where callers were asked to state the reason for their call prior to being transferred to an agent. These statements and historical data were used to develop a list of common call types guided by the actual language used to make the requests, voice responses and relevant links to the City’s website. As more residents interact with the system, it will “learn” based on keywords provided and will refine its answers over time to deliver the most accurate information possible. 

What were the results? 

In the first month after the service went live, 36% of all incoming calls to the non-emergency line were handled completely by Amazon Connect or transferred to more appropriate departments. Additionally, 3% of calls were identified as likely emergencies based on caller input and prioritized above other calls. Callers reported shorter hold times and 911 telecommunicators reported that live calls were generally for more complex situations that required their intervention.  

Most recently, the service was used to reduce the impact of the large number of calls related to fireworks on and around the Fourth of July. The system prompted callers reporting illegal fireworks usage to select a special option during the greeting. After ruling out potential emergency situations, such as a house or brush fires, the system directed callers to enter an online form and texted a link to the form. Hundreds of entries were received from this alternate approach, saving 911 many hours of talk time on these non-emergency requests for police. 

 Learn more about Amazon Connect and read the FAQ.