Conversational Platform

Descriptions

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for welfare, pensions, and child maintenance policy within the UK. As the UK’s biggest public service department, it administers the State Pension and a range of working age and disability benefits to around 20 million UK citizens. DWP is committed to doing everything it can to enhance the overall citizen experience of our citizens. Citizens contact DWP wishing to start, validate, change or query their benefit claims. Calls using free phone Non-Geographic Numbers (NGNs) are answered by advisors within the DWP contact centre, which is the largest platform of its kind across all UK Government Departments and is one of the largest in Europe. The contact centre managed service ensures that all twenty-seven of DWP’s Business Groups can connect with and support citizens, while also offering specialist services such as debt recovery and support for citizens with complex needs. Conversational Platform is a Natural Language Call Steering (NLCS) solution which allows citizens to speak naturally, provides a better insight into why our citizens are calling, which then enables the guiding of the call to right agent which in turn offers the ability to provide a personalised call deflection and or self- service offering. The net results create several operational efficiencies. This solution is integrated into the DWP contact centre platform and will help DWP better serve millions of citizens by improving how we handle inbound calls, route queries intelligently, and offer self-service options. DWP is currently investigating options for how to continue delivering Conversational Platform services beyond the expiry of the current contract. DWP is undertaking a market engagement exercise to gather insights from suppliers to inform our future strategy and approach to Conversational Platform. Our aim is to gather information on current capabilities and future innovations to inform a future procurement.