Through English and Spanish calls and web chats, the USAGov Contact Center identifies trends in the public’s questions about government services. That knowledge helps USAGov serve them better through our other channels, too. Learn how the contact center and other teams at USAGov support each other in connecting people with their government.
Consistent information across channels
Contact center agents rely on a knowledge base that is tied to USAGov’s websites. When the content team updates or publishes a new web page, the contact center’s knowledge base is automatically updated. Following this “create once, publish everywhere” approach helps us provide consistent and reliable government information across USAGov channels. This is especially helpful in quickly changing situations such as the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Regular cross-functional meetings
Cross-team communication has been vital to our channels.
- The contact center’s knowledge base manager meets weekly with a liaison from the web content team. As they review topics that have come up during call and chat quality assurance assessments, they evaluate how well the knowledge base is serving agents. And together, they develop ways that the web content team can improve the information so it benefits agents, the people they’re helping, and website users.
- Members of the contact center team attend the outreach team’s weekly brainstorming sessions to share current trends in call and chat questions from the public. Outreach team members use this information to address these popular topics in social media messaging.
Sharing data
The contact center and analytics teams work closely to compile regular reports highlighting call and web chat trends including:
- Spikes in questions about particular topics
- Overall monthly call and chat volume
- Which interactive voice response (IVR) topics callers choose the most
Other teams across USAGov incorporate this data into their product development and find trends, discrepancies, and better ways to present information to the public. For example, if there is an increase in calls related to benefits programs, the outreach team will incorporate more benefits information into their editorial calendar to share with our social media and email audiences.
Listening sessions
As a public-facing program, we learn so much from hearing directly from people, finding out what topics they’re asking about, and how they phrase their questions. That’s why we value our weekly listening sessions. Each Friday, team members from across USAGov listen together to agents handling live contact center calls. This helps us empathetically understand the public’s challenges as they search for government resources to solve their problems. And it helps us know how to enhance our knowledge base content to make it easier for agents to give people the information they need.
As we’re using these methods to learn from and support the contact center team, all of USAGov’s teams and channels are constantly looking for new ways to connect, share information, and help each other serve people.
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If you’re from a federal agency looking for new ways to reach your audience, learn about partnering with USAGov at usa.gov/partnerships. Connect with us!
