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DONEVoice AIUtilitiesCall CentreIncident Management

Voice AI Incident Call Handling Assistant

Department: Scottish Water

Problem to Solve

During major water supply incidents affecting towns or regions in Scotland, Scottish Water experiences sudden spikes in incoming phone calls. These surges overwhelm existing call-handling capacity, leading to long wait times, frustrated customers, and the risk that critical or unrelated incidents are delayed or missed. Many customers call for the same information (e.g. "Is there an outage in my area?", "When will water be restored?"), yet still need reassurance and clear, accurate updates. While online channels exist, not all customers are able or willing to use them, particularly during stressful situations or where digital access is limited.

Proposed Solution

Introduce a voice AI system that automatically handles and manages incoming calls during periods of high demand. The voice AI provides real-time, location-specific incident information through natural conversation, answers common questions, and triages calls that require human intervention. The solution ensures all callers are answered promptly via the phone channel they already trust, while reducing pressure on human call handlers and allowing them to focus on complex, urgent, or safety-critical issues.

Where This Challenge Fits

This challenge focuses on the Voice AI handling and raising of incidents through customer calls

Identifies Water Issue

Customer

Handles & Raises Incident

Voice AI

Validates & Prioritises Incident

Scottish Water Operations

Dispatches Repair Team

Scottish Water Operations

Closes Incident & Communicates Outcome

Scottish Water

Completes Reinstatement

Scottish Water / Contractors

Restores Water Supply

Scottish Water Operations

Carries Out Repair

Repair Team

What we did

  • ✓Researched Scottish Water's incident management processes and call handling workflows
  • ✓Identified common customer queries and information needs during water supply incidents
  • ✓Built a voice AI system that provides issue raising ability through natural conversation
  • ✓Developed intelligent call triage capabilities to identify calls requiring human intervention
  • ✓Demonstrated the ability to integrate with backend systems including ticketing systems and CRMs to create and update incident records
  • ✓Tested the system's ability to handle customer calls while maintaining accurate information delivery and appropriate escalation

Outcome

The voice AI system successfully demonstrated its ability to handle incoming customer calls, providing immediate responses and gathering necessary information through natural conversation.

The integration with backend ticketing systems and CRMs was successfully demonstrated, showing that the voice AI can automatically create and update incident records, ensuring seamless workflow continuity and reducing manual data entry.

This proof-of-concept showed that voice AI can meaningfully support call centres, ensuring callers receive prompt attention via the phone channel they trust, while allowing human call handlers to focus on cases that truly need their expertise.

Technical Insights

Key Technologies

  • • Real-time voice AI and speech recognition
  • • Natural language understanding for incident queries
  • • Location-based incident data integration
  • • Intelligent call triage and escalation logic
  • • Backend system integration (ticketing systems, CRMs)
  • • API integration for incident record creation and updates

Challenges Solved

  • • Handling customer calls through natural conversation
  • • Providing accurate, location-specific information
  • • Identifying when human intervention is needed
  • • Maintaining conversation quality and accuracy
  • • Integrating with existing ticketing systems and CRMs
  • • Automating incident record creation and updates