City and County of Denver Improve 311 Performance with AI-Powered Virtual Assistant

Overview:

In March 2024, the City and County of Denver, Colorado launched Sunny, an AI-powered virtual assistant that helps residents and visitors quickly access city information, and get business with the city started. 

Powered by Citibot, Sunny was implemented to manage a growing audience of residents' desire for self-service and handle seasonal volume surges. It also sought to expand multilingual access to services and reduce call wait times – without increasing staffing – by providing access to city services right where its users already are… on their phones!

Results & Impact: 

Initial 18 Months Outcomes:

• 95,000 conversations with Sunny (about 20% of all 311 interactions)
• 42 languages used 
• 85% approval rating for bot-handled experiences
• 30% of service requests initiated digitally

Peak Season Outcomes:

• Denver’s Average Speed of Answer (ASA) stayed consistently below two minutes
• Live agent staffing reduced by 45% 
• Live agents focused on more complex calls, with average handle time holding at four minutes.

The Challenge: Meeting increasing demand with limited resources 

Denver serves more than 729,000 residents. 311 handles over 500,000 interactions annually. As the largest metro area in the state, Denver’s economy is heavily reliant on tourism, and local outdoor activities. 

During the summer months when schools are on break and summer regional activities bring increased interaction volumes, volumes into Denver’s 311 system increase by upwards of 35%. That high of a sustained increase can have profound negative impact on the overall 311 experience. City leaders were looking for a solution that could tackle the high-volume routine inquiries, deliver accurate information quickly, allow residents to open cases for needed services, and to do so by leveraging existing systems as much as possible.

The Solution: 

Recognizing the unique capabilities of Citibot’s virtual assistant, Sunny, Denver set out to see if the tool could become the city’s latest expert helping to deliver support to a diverse group of residents and visitors. Sunny can answer general questions related to city-specific topics, relying exclusively on information on the Denver City and County website, alongside a heavily curated “library of additional information”. With language capacity to respond in 72 different languages, users can text or chat with Sunny in their preferred language, and Sunny responds in kind. 

“The consumers of local government services are changing. ‘Digital Babies’, people who have grown up using technology to transact business, are becoming home buyers, renters and business owners. They have little to no tolerance for the idea of having to walk into a city building to do business. They really don’t even want to have to talk to a person. More and more they expect digital, self-service solutions for their city service needs. Done well, AI is the force multiplier you need to bring your resident experiences to the next level. AI offers the opportunity to enhance resident experience while lowering cost to serve. This is an opportunity we do not want to miss.” Laura Dunwoody, Director of Resident Engagement, Technology Services for the City and County of Denver. 

Implementation and Investment: 

Denver invested $384,000 across a three-year contract. From contract execution to launch, implementation took nine months. 

Pre-launch data prep efforts included:

• Cutting the total number of City website pages in half
• Shifting language to a 6th-grade reading level
• Improving Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance 
• Removing acronyms 

An estimated 100 employee hours were spent by 311 customer service managers vetting topics, answers, and workflows for Salesforce case creation, and approximately 20 employee hours were spent by Information Technology to provide credentials and move the tool from beta into a live format. The City has advertised this tool to the public through social media, billboards, stickers on fleet vehicles, and through local media.