Citywide Contact Center Voice Assistant

The main articles are:

• Speech technology: On the path from recognition to understanding
• Call Center: Purpose, Types, and Tasks

2023: Using different intonations when communicating with residents

The voice assistant in the Moscow citywide contact center now uses different intonations when communicating with residents. Artificial intelligence selects them automatically depending on the dialogue scenario. This was announced on November 29, 2023 by the Moscow Department of Information Technologies (DIT).

For example, if a person asks to record him with a doctor, the voice assistant answers with sympathy, and in cases where a resident calls to clarify the status of readiness of documents or the work schedule of city departments - with benevolence. This function is already used on the hotlines of the unified reference service of the Moscow Government and the unified medical reference service for the population.

As noted in the metropolitan Department of Information Technology, thanks to the use of the voice module, residents began to trust artificial intelligence even more: the number of calls that citizens ask to transfer to the operator decreased by eight percent.

Artificial intelligence receives almost half of the calls that come to the citywide contact center, so the city systematically develops its capabilities so that residents are even more comfortable communicating with the voice assistant. We understand that residents who turn to hotlines can not only have different questions, but also different moods, they can worry or feel unwell, so the new model of a female synthesized voice thanks to wider speech playback capabilities is as close as possible to human communication and most has residents to dialogue. A unique voice created specifically for the city answers calls from residents on two hotlines, but we already see a positive effect from its implementation and in the future we plan to use it on other channels of the citywide contact center, "said Andrei Savitsky, head of the citywide contact center.

The advanced voice assistant also copes with correct decryption and coordination of numerals, correctly reproduces the stress in words, places accents and pauses in the sentence.

The synthesized voice model created was created using multilevel natural language processing. The announcer records speech constructs using a wider range of intonations, phonetics, articulation, and speech expressiveness. The work takes place in special conditions that exclude extraneous sounds. The recording is then processed and a mathematical model of voice is formed - a neural network that is trained to simulate a person's voice. The responses collected in the speech modules are included in the scenario of the voice assistant on a specific topic.

A voice assistant on the city-wide contact center's hotlines has been advising residents since 2014. On average, in two minutes, the robot manages to listen to the subscriber, clarify additional information, find an answer in the knowledge base and voice it to a person.

Artificial intelligence processes almost half of calls to city-wide contact center hotlines without involving specialists. In 2023 alone, the voice assistant received more than 25 million calls from citizens. In his arsenal, not only the knowledge base on more than 400 topics and human functionality speech recognition , but also 11 different voices, which are selected depending on the profile of the hotline. Basically, the voice assistant communicates with the townspeople with female voices: according to data to research, this causes more confidence and disposition to communicate if the questions relate to the social sphere or clarify the work schedule of departments. And to solve problems with plumbing, electrics or in emergency situations, maximum trust to the robot appears if he speaks in a male voice: for example, this is how he accepts applications on the line of a single dispatch center.

The voice assistant is involved in 11 hotlines of the citywide contact center. In addition to the unified reference service of the Moscow Government, citizens can receive the help of artificial intelligence in a single dispatch center, a single medical reference service for the population of the city of Moscow, an appointment service for a doctor, a Moscow Transport contact center or 3210 from a mobile phone), on a hotline for registering readings of individual meters of water consumption and electricity.

2021:65 million calls received

The robot assistant of the citywide contact center in Moscow received more than 65 million calls. This was announced on November 1, 2021 by the Moscow Department of Information Technologies (DIT).

The voice assistant of the citywide contact center began working in the capital in March 2014. Since then, he has received more than 65 million calls from Muscovites - almost half of all calls. The robot advises citizens on the provision of public services, housing and communal services, transport and other topics.

A voice assistant is an artificial intelligence that contact center specialists constantly train and improve. For November 2021, he knows how to determine the topic of appeal, recognize long and complex phrases, fully communicate with a person. The robot helps both Muscovites and call center operators. Advising citizens on a fairly extensive range of issues, he reduces the waiting time on the line and at the same time relieves the load on operators. For seven and a half years, the voice assistant has processed more than 65 million calls, - said Deputy Mayor Natalya Sergunina. Her words are quoted on the portal mos.ru.

The constant increase in the number of independently processed calls indicates the usefulness and effectiveness of the voice assistant. So, in 2020, he took an average of 44 percent of calls per month without the participation of contact center specialists, and in 2021 he already serves half of the requests himself. From January to October 2021, the robot processed over 24 million calls, of which 12.3 million - without involving an operator.

The first project where the citywide contact center team implemented a voice assistant was to capture meter readings, then the robot learned to answer many other questions. As of November 2021, his knowledge base contains more than 100 topics: he can clarify contacts and the mode of operation of city institutions, the date of seasonal shutdown of hot water or the status of readiness of documents. Moreover, he not only advises citizens, but also helps to collect feedback on the quality of the services provided, notifies about the beginning of the heating season and can call the applicant back.

Thanks to the neural network, the robot finds the necessary information in the knowledge base twice as quickly as a person: it is enough for a resident to pronounce the request in free form, and the voice assistant will select the answer within a few seconds. Interestingly, the virtual assistant understands colloquial vocabulary, for example, the words "payment," "machine" or "wheelbarrow," time intervals (by the phrases "tomorrow at noon," "today at three") and even evaluates the emotional background of the dialogue with the user.

In 2021, the citywide contact center began to use deep learning technologies for the voice assistant. This is a combination of artificial intelligence training methods and algorithms that allows for more accurate recognition of human speech. Thanks to this, the level of speech perception increased from 92 to 96 percent, that is, the robot will correctly understand the spoken words with a probability of up to 96 percent. In addition, the virtual assistant learns from the example of the actions of a specialist. If he receives a difficult question, he will redirect it to the operator and pre-select possible answers. The robot will remember and store the human-approved answer in the intellectual database.