In 2008, a study by the Institute for Government revealed that siloed bureaucracy was threating the UK government’s ability to deliver frontline services. Departments were struggling to communicate with one another leading to a number of challenges for ministers, employees and the public alike.

Fifteen years later, inter-department interoperability remains a priority. Yet, due to the ever evolving and complex nature of government systems, seamless interoperability remains an ongoing challenge. And despite new initiatives having gone live, including the National Health Service’s interoperability toolkit (ITK), there’s still more to be done to ensure inter-government systems can operate with as little friction as possible. So the public can benefit from a high-quality customer service and enjoy the best end user experiences possible.

Turning to the cloud

Interoperable, user friendly and cost-effective cloud-based SaaS solutions are becoming the technologies of choice for public sector bodies. Especially those looking to digitally enhance their systems to drive inter-organisational collaboration. And during times of declining public trust in the Government's ability to improve public services, agents in public sector contact centres need to be equipped with all the appropriate tools to handle the likely influx of more emotive consumer queries that require more complex actions and solutions.

This will be especially important as we continue to transition towards a future of intelligent cities, more connected devices and end user touch points. The public will soon have more ways to engage with government departments and support networks than ever before, and being able to pull from data across departments and engage with contacts seamlessly will be critical.

Contextual data in the cloud is key

What cannot be overlooked during this period of change is context. This is crucial for contact centre agents who are often time-poor but expected to still provide high quality services. Tech tools, rooted in AI, natural language processing (NLP) and understanding (NLU), that direct and route customer queries and determine what the next best action is, based on data inputted by citizens, depend on data to function. Historical data such as previous customer calls, chats, emails and other communications can help lead queries toward the next best action.

With the cloud, there is no need for public sector organisations and their contact centres to invest in the installation or maintenance of expensive infrastructure. And when it comes to data sharing, an integrated cloud-native ecosystem can reduce the chance of manual error when it comes to transferring data from one platform to another.

The DMWL (doing more with less) ethos

Whilst investing in new technology can seem counter-intuitive in an era of tight public sector budgets, the process of centralising departmental data can encourage more efficient and cost-saving resourcing in the longer-term, especially when it comes to maintaining and improving customer service and optimising communications channels like phone interactions, online chatbots and self-serve channels.

Breaking down siloed data, by integrating databases, can help contact centres to organise their data appropriately, enhancing their ability to adapt, manage and respond to different levels of complex customer interactions and queries. For example, customer queries can be managed by natural language understanding (NLU), whereby computers can extract meaning from human interactions, to more accurately identify callers and route them directly to the right specialised team for the task; thereby setting a call up for first time success.

All citizens depend on local government and public sector organisations, and with that comes the responsibility of providing the best customer experience possible. Whilst reduced budgets remain a barrier, cloud-based SaaS solutions provide a cost-effective solution, helping public sector bodies to tackle remove their data from silos, promote much more cross-function collaboration and keep their systems and customers connected.

Jake Gardiner is senior enterprise account director at Odigo.