Christine Thropp
Marc Mancher, a principal at Deloitte Consulting, and Alan Balutis, a senior director of North American public sector at Cisco Systems’ business solutions group, have said that agencies should integrate artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies with digital call centers to continuously deliver information and services to the public during the coronavirus pandemic or national emergencies.
Mancher and Balutis wrote in a joint commentary published Monday that the ongoing global health crisis prompted the government to increase its use of self-service tools to simplify remote engagement with the public.
"Government agencies have been forced to quickly evolve how they serve important needs of citizens," the two executives noted, citing how agencies implemented work from home arrangement and started contact centers and online services in the interest of safety.
Discussing how the pandemic spurred modernization, they said customer interaction hubs and public websites were unable to meet the increasing citizen demands because the systems have not been updated in years.
Both executives urged government leaders to prioritize the modernization of contact center infrastructure.
