AI for Non-Emergency Services With Amazon Connect

Staffing shortages and increasing call volumes have stretched 9-1-1 centers and public safety answering points (PSAPs) to their limits. Non-emergency calls often overwhelm staff, delaying the response to critical emergencies and increasing costs.

Non-emergency call handling is an important issue for public safety organizations and citizens, and technology such as AI and interactive voice response (IVR) can help organizations streamline operations, reduce costs and improve citizen satisfaction.

Non-emergency calls often make up a significant portion of the call volume reaching PSAPs. These include calls for noise complaints, fireworks, animal control, road closures and more. While they’re important to citizens, they don’t require critical or immediate action, making them ideal candidates for automation with Amazon Connect.

Amazon Connect is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered, cloud-based contact center platform that combines AI and practical applications to deliver measurable results and help transform call management. This allows teams to focus on life-saving emergencies instead.

● Administrative line management: Amazon Connect uses interactive voice response (IVR) and AI technologies to automate and handle non-emergency calls to administrative 10-digit numbers. This eliminates the need for human intervention for frequently asked questions and allows teams to give urgent cases the level of attention they deserve.

● 9-1-1 call redirection: Calls that come through 9-1-1 but are revealed to be non-emergencies can be redirected to the Amazon Connect IVR system. This ensures that emergency lines remain open for true emergencies while still being able to assist all callers.

●  Multi-language support: Amazon Connect supports over 29 languages with the help of Amazon Lex, helping make accurate and natural interactions possible regardless of the caller’s preferred language.

There are many ways in which Amazon Connect is helping transform the way organizations handle non-emergency calls. By redirecting these calls to Amazon Connect, centers can handle inquiries without involving emergency operators, enabling faster response times for emergency situations and helping operators cope with staffing shortages and rising call volumes.

Even if your agency only automates 50% of non-emergency inquiries, you will significantly reduce the resources needed for everyday tasks. This helps lower operational costs and ensures that calls are managed quickly and efficiently. With Amazon Connect, your team won't need to spend as much time redirecting a noise complaint or an animal control issue. Instead, you’ll save time and help your team feel empowered.  

Additionally, citizens will have a better customer experience and receive a faster response. When it comes to simple queries like reporting a pothole or inquiring about road closures, citizens prefer self-service options. With Amazon Connect, automated customer experiences are designed to feel smooth and easy, encouraging more users to take advantage of this time-saving technology.

Imagine you’re a citizen trying to report a stray dog wandering your street. You understand this is not an emergency, so you call a dedicated 10-digit line, and you are greeted by Amazon Connect’s AI-powered IVR asking you to “Please describe the reason for your call.” Using natural language understanding (NLU), it identifies the issue (e.g., a dog sighting) and collects critical information such as location and duration by automating decision flow.

Once sufficient information is gathered, Amazon Connect determines the action required and routes the issue to animal control by sending the necessary details via SMS, email or an update to the agency's customer relationship management (CRM) system to resolve the issue.

The system handles the entire interaction without requiring human intervention, ensuring a quick and seamless resolution for the caller while keeping emergency operators free for actual crises.

Generative AI, a key technology within Amazon Connect, is becoming an essential tool for future-proofing operations in the public sector. By helping to identify the reason a caller dialed in and enabling efficient self-service, AI helps organizations accomplish more with fewer resources, all while maintaining the human touch in areas where it matters most.

Cities, counties and states can greatly benefit from AI-powered automation in managing non-emergency calls, which frees up teams to focus on critical emergencies. Amazon Connect’s scalable, cloud-based infrastructure helps public safety agencies provide quicker, more efficient service while future-proofing their operations. By automating routine inquiries and offering self-service options, agencies can improve response times and ensure better care for both emergency and non-emergency situations.

CDW and AWS have partnered to create this tailored solution that helps cities manage non-emergency calls, offering the expertise needed from planning to ongoing maintenance.