The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is advising claimants not to be concerned if a “human-like” voice speaks to them when they contact them by phone.
Making the announcement in the latest Touchbase newsletter, the DWP explained that from the end of this month, data will be collected regarding the reason for the call.
The DWP said: “Conversational Platform (CP) is one of a suite of new strategic solutions being introduced by DWP to provide an improved modern telephony service in line with changing customer needs.
“CP will transform the customer journey by providing an automated conversational experience, replacing existing Interactive Voice Response (i.e. press 1 for X, 2 for Y) with a voice led solution (‘What are you calling about today?’).”
It continued: “As customer experience is critical in supporting the development of CP, from the end of March 2022 data will be collected regarding the reason for the call. Customers should not be concerned if they hear a ‘human like’ voice when they contact us.”
Conversational platforms can be anything from an FAQ chatbot to something like Siri or Alexa which uses machine learning to improve its responses over time.
Online forum, Benefits and Work, speculates that this could be a way to reduce call waiting times.
It said: “The main advantages to the DWP are that phone calls can be answered much more quickly at considerably lower cost than employing people to staff phone lines.
“Where the query is a simple one, an automated response may be sufficient.”
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