AWS Public Sector Blog

Orange County United Way uses Amazon Connect to optimize 2-1-1 community service

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Serving hundreds of thousands of residents in all 34 cities of the region, Orange County United Way provides a wide range of vital community services throughout Orange County, California. In addition to its ongoing initiatives, which address critical issues in the community and develop solutions to help end homelessness, increase family financial stability, and support equity in education, United Way offers a 2-1-1 crisis hotline that connects callers with local health and human resource services. Accessible 24 hours per day, seven days per week, the 2-1-1 hotline connects thousands of residents to local nonprofits and government agencies to assist with healthcare, food insecurity, homelessness, elder and childcare, and legal services—just to name a few.

Recognizing the potential to enhance this vital service, United Way took proactive steps last year to acquire 2-1-1 Orange County. With a vision to innovate, optimize, and streamline the service, United Way is committed to reviving and strengthening this key service so it continues to effectively serve the community.

After working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner SoftwareONE to migrate its crisis hotline to Amazon Connect in the AWS Cloud, United Way now boasts enhanced call routing, data collection, and supervisory tools. These new capabilities help them deliver important resources to their community faster and more thoroughly. Occurring amidst United Way’s centennial year, commemorating a century of impact, this innovative strategy aligns with the nonprofit’s forward-thinking approach, which is and has always been focused on improving lives and creating positive change for future generations.

Revitalizing an aging 2-1-1 call center with Amazon Connect

The 2-1-1 hotline is a vital resource for Orange County residents, acting as an entry point to a multitude of community resources. That also means the service is an intermediary to many other organizations, all of which have their own data and processes. With the increase in data collected across social services, the call center’s older architecture couldn’t keep up. Much of the process relied on manual data entry, stretching workers thin and creating a disconnect between the service and its community partners. United Way needed a better system, not only to connect callers with relevant services, but also to leverage long-term data and feedback to produce better outcomes with those services. They reached out to AWS for help. “We hosted a statewide 2-1-1 convening at Orange County United Way and invited AWS to talk about the enhanced telephony services they could offer,” said Amy Arambulo, Director, Community Impact, 2-1-1 Orange County.

Impressed with the AWS call center solution, United Way leadership decided to move forward. “Amazon Connect has that higher level functionality to take our connection center to where it needs to be tech-wise,” Arambulo noted. Next, AWS introduced the organization to SoftwareONE, an AWS Partner specializing in nonprofits and call centers. AWS also helped them apply for a grant through the AWS Health Equity Initiative, providing much-needed resources for the call-center project. With funding secured and SoftwareONE helping build a custom solution, United Way became the first 2-1-1 service in California on Amazon Connect.

Expansive tools and enhanced functionality for all levels of operation

In early 2024, SoftwareONE and United Way began the discovery phase to determine how Amazon Connect could best improve the workflow and functionality of the 2-1-1 service. “After we did some research on the capabilities of Amazon Connect, it opened up ways that we could empower our reps, create scalability, and utilize more features to build a roadmap to take our call center to the next level,” said Chris Ticknor, chief transformation officer at United Way. Ticknor found that Amazon Connect could support and expand virtually all of the 2-1-1 service’s tools, including supervisory tools like screen viewing and remote troubleshooting, call sentiment analysis, Salesforce integration, robust reporting, and automatic call summaries. By spring 2024, SoftwareONE started building a custom solution using Amazon Connect. It was ready to roll out by August, allowing United Way to launch its new call center within the year—a month ahead of schedule.

Intuitive setup, efficient call routing, and insights on agent behavior

When United Way’s 2-1-1 service migrated to Amazon Connect and started using its robust features, the organization experienced immediate improvements in workflow:

  • Quick user interface (UI) adoption: Simple drag-and-drop functionality for call flow management.
  • Performance evaluation tools for iteration: Supervisory tools, immediate surveys, call analytics, forecasting capacity, and more.
  • Streamlined interactive voice response (IVR): Efficiently and effectively routing calls to the appropriate team or organization, regardless of call volume.
  • Comprehensive analytics: With Amazon Connect Contact Lens, United Way can transcribe customer calls, analyze customer sentiment in calls, redact sensitive data, uncover common conversation trends, and more.
  • Integrated tools: Seamless connection with other AWS or third-party tools, including Salesforce for customer relationship management (CRM), and generative AI tools to improve IVR, translation, and chatbots, which United Way is considering for future use.

In addition to Amazon Connect’s functionality, United Way can better control costs by scaling resources as needed to account for dynamic call volumes. As a result, the 2-1-1 service not only gained increased functionality, but also increased efficiency of spending.

United Way now has more data than ever before on its 2-1-1 database such as usage trends, efficacy, efficiency, and user base, among other data points. What’s more, they can use the data year-over-year to better inform operations and, in turn, the community they serve. “In the past, the seasonal spikes and ebbs of what we do made it hard to measure,” said Ticknor. “We’re excited to start getting year-over-year performance data and really be able to map trends.”

Thanks to increased functionality, the 2-1-1 service has already seen process improvement: callers are now submitting more post-call surveys, which provides more data to revise workflows. Call summaries are now automated thanks to generative AI, freeing up agents from the job of transcribing, which expands their time to focus on callers. Through the supervisor viewing screen, supervisors can now review and troubleshoot issues immediately after a call. Even the assessment of caller sentiment is now automated through transcript analysis. Resulting in objective and aggregated data on how callers feel about their interactions with the service.

“We’re starting to get data insights into errors that might have been made, things that can help us improve,” said Ticknor. “This helps us see where we can fine-tune or supplement training and just better understand data points overall—it’s really exciting.”

Streamlining data and future-proofing operations

The migration to Amazon Connect has also allowed United Way’s 2-1-1 service to streamline data-sharing with partner organizations—securely and with their consent—so clients are supported every step of the way. “We want to disseminate relevant information to everyone serving this individual,” said Ticknor. “United Way maps this journey with other community providers to provide optimal, whole-person care.” Traditionally, nonprofits and government agencies only have access to their clients’ data that exists internally. But when residents seek resources or services across different sectors, data-sharing can save crucial time or shed light on how to best serve them.

“The technology fits in really well with some of the broader projects we’re looking to achieve here,” said Rose Buenaventura, vice president of development operations at Orange County United Way. “With the data that we’re getting, we’re able to start analyzing trends that are affecting the community.”

Utilizing Amazon Connect’s ability to integrate with other platforms and leveraging AWS’s evolving services has allowed Orange County United Way to dream big. Machine learning (ML) and AI will yield longitudinal data on caller patterns and trends, while generative AI can analyze that data and suggest ways to address those trends to improve processes and care. And, as more partners and government agencies adopt Amazon Connect for their call centers and data centers, there will be more opportunities to integrate and share data, streamlining the user experience for communities in need. “There’s a lot more data available to analyze,” said Buenaventura. “Right now, we are in the process of analyzing it—but there are more key points that we can hone in on.”

AWS stands ready to help nonprofits migrate to the cloud

Based on its experience with AWS and SoftwareONE, Orange County United Way offered the following takeaways to call centers considering a similar migration:

  • Take inventory. Consider how you can best utilize your resources, including staffing, to support a major infrastructure migration.
  • Rely on AWS and AWS Partners. The AWS for Nonprofits team helped navigate resources and grants for United Way, removing anxiety and identifying a path forward.
  • Don’t hesitate to reach out. Connect with the AWS for Nonprofits team to find an appropriate AWS Partner and receive all the resources to begin your migration journey.

United Way presented an in-depth look at its transformative contact center solution at AWS re:Invent 2024. Watch the session on-demand to learn more.

Cloud migration is no small process. Let AWS for Nonprofits connect you with a trusted AWS Partner today, facilitating the journey and providing a clear path forward.

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