AWS Public Sector Blog
How tax agencies are modernizing contact centers with Amazon Connect and generative AI
State tax agencies face some of the toughest operating environments in government. They handle high volumes of sensitive data, navigate seasonal surges in customer inquiries, and must deliver timely, accurate information despite tight budgets and legacy systems. In recent years, many have turned to Amazon Connect and other applications powered by artificial intelligence (AI) from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to transform their contact centers.
In just three years, AWS has gone from working with one state tax agency to supporting numerous tax agencies on Amazon Connect. That rapid growth reflects growing trust in AWS solutions as secure, compliant, and performance-ready for agencies that handle highly sensitive data.
This blog post explores how the Alabama Department of Revenue (ALDOR) and the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (Wisconsin DOR) are using AWS applications and services to modernize their contact centers to improve resilience, reduce costs, and scale support for the communities they serve.
Alabama: A faster, smarter IVR deployed in only eight days
During a broader cloud migration initiative, ALDOR recognized an opportunity to upgrade its aging interactive voice response (IVR) system. Their existing system—hosted by a third party—was no longer supported and was decommissioned before a replacement was ready, forcing staff to handle thousands of calls manually at a cost of roughly $1.5 million per month. ALDOR needed a solution that could be deployed quickly and scale immediately.
With support from AWS Professional Services, ALDOR implemented a new IVR powered by Amazon Lex and AWS Lambda that helped automate call handling. The entire deployment took just eight days.
This cloud-powered IVR transformation helped increase call capacity from 150 to 2,000 calls per day during peak season, reduce average call times from 20 minutes to just three, and eliminate wait times. The IVR is multi-lingual too, providing service in both English and Spanish. By increasing self-service for taxpayers and reducing duplicative work for agents, the new call center allowed staff to focus on collections, where they recovered an additional $1.5 million monthly.
“The positive results have been significant,” said Larry Prestwood, enterprise project planner at the Alabama Office of Information Technology. “We’ve seen streamlined operations, enhanced security posture, and improved systems compliance across distributed teams. The cloud-based infrastructure has enabled ALDOR to innovate faster and respond more quickly to changing business needs.”
ALDOR’s IVR success is just one example of a larger shift: The department has now migrated its entire GenTax environment and supporting applications to AWS—improving scalability, strengthening disaster recovery, and enhancing compliance across its agency operations.
Wisconsin: Cutting costs by 66% with zero downtime using Amazon Connect
For the Wisconsin DOR, the 2025 individual income tax season presented a major challenge. Facing a temporary 30% staffing reduction and relying on a legacy call system prone to outages, the agency needed a solution that could meet the moment.
Working with AWS and implementation partner ScaleCapacity, the department launched a modernized contact center powered by Amazon Connect in under four months. Since going live, they’ve achieved a 66% cost savings, far exceeding the initial projections of 50%.
The transformation has also increased agent productivity, despite the reduction in resources. “We can handle calls more efficiently now, leading to a drop in hold times,” added Amanda Mosel, director of the Customer Service Bureau in the Division of Income, Sales, and Excise Tax at the Wisconsin DOR.
The solution incorporated AI-powered tools to boost efficiency. Amazon Connect Contact Lens provides real-time analytics for call data, which helped the Wisconsin DOR effectively allocate its reduced agent resources. Contact Lens also facilitates faster agent training and onboarding by providing supervisors with sentiment analysis and automated call summaries; managers no longer need to sit through full 45-minute calls to identify issues and instead can jump directly to areas of concern. Amazon Polly—an AI text-to-speech service—also supports immediate updates to the IVR system, eliminating delays caused by manual voice recordings.
“The AWS staff were there with us through the entire project from beginning to end,” said Brad Thome, customer service bureau director at the Division of Technology Services. “They helped us put together a budget estimate based on our existing call center consumption and connected us with the appropriate implementor to meet our tight timeline.”
How Amazon Connect supports the taxpayer experience
Tax agencies can use Amazon Connect to improve taxpayer experiences and deliver measurable results across four key areas:
1. Scalable and resilient performance year-round
With the scalability and elasticity of AWS, contact centers can remain available and responsive when demand is highest. The Wisconsin DOR had no system outages in the first year on Amazon Connect, resolving a critical vulnerability that had caused up to 51 hours of outages in a single year on their previous system.
2. Increased accuracy and transparency with Amazon Q in Connect
Using Amazon Q in Connect, a generative AI assistant for customer service, call center agents can access trustworthy answers drawn from agency knowledge bases and complete with source citations. This supports consistent and expedient customer support, even as tax laws or procedures change.
3. Real-time insights with Contact Lens
Contact Lens uses real-time analytics powered by AI to help supervisors monitor performance, identify coaching opportunities, and better understand call dynamics. Features like sentiment analysis, keyword search, and automated call summaries reduce the burden of manual QA and improve onboarding.
4. Inclusive, accessible taxpayer service
Amazon Connect supports multilingual service delivery and text-to-speech updates, empowering agencies to serve diverse communities more effectively. Teams can update IVR flows or deploy urgent messages in multiple languages in minutes, avoiding lengthy translation cycles or recording delays. This agility keeps all taxpayers informed during critical deadlines.
Transform tax services with Amazon Connect
If your agency is exploring how to modernize its contact center, AWS and its partners offer the tools and expertise to guide your journey. Whether you’re starting small with an IVR update or building a full-featured AI-powered contact center, Amazon Connect can help provide cost-effective customer experience transformation at scale.
Contact the AWS State and Local Government team to request a demo or learn more.