The Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR) is responsible for managing the state’s income and business tax regulations, overseeing property tax assessments, regulating sales of alcohol and tobacco, verifying taxpayer identities, managing the state lottery, and dispersing tax revenues to local municipalities. The agency’s contact center, staffed by around 500 agents, handles approximately 700,000 calls each year. Previously reliant on a series of disparate technologies fraught with frequent outages, inefficient workflows, cumbersome documentation processes, and a lack of modern features, the customer experience suffered considerably. In search of a more streamlined, modern, and scalable solution, the Wisconsin DOR partnered with AWS Partner ScaleCapacity to transition its contact center to Amazon Web Services (AWS). In just four months, the migration was completed, decreasing technology costs by 66% while eliminating outages and cutting hold times by 60% in the Customer Service Bureau.
Challenges of High Costs and Inefficiencies
The Wisconsin DOR manages over $21.3 billion in tax revenue annually, with agents addressing inquiries from residents, business owners, local tax authorities, and others. A malfunctioning contact center hindered the ability of constituents to receive timely answers regarding tax refunds, payments, business permits, lottery claims, and other significant issues. Inefficient contact center operations also affected local governments, which rely on timely information regarding the funds necessary for providing services.
The agency’s outdated contact center was constructed from two different systems integrated into a custom solution. This arrangement was costly, as the Wisconsin DOR was charged per agent along with additional telephony fees based on usage. The technology frequently suffered outages, with one year seeing disruptions totaling 51 hours. Complicated troubleshooting processes meant that problems in one area could impact the entire contact center, while the cumbersome architecture inflated hold times, prompting many constituents to call back multiple times for resolution.
The previous setup also posed challenges for contact center staff. Following each customer interaction, agents were required to complete multiple manual steps, hampering their ability to assist the next caller promptly. Supervisors lacked modern analytical tools, forcing them to sift through lengthy call recordings to identify issues and train staff. Resource planning was further complicated by the absence of reliable, real-time data that could adapt to seasonal fluctuations in call volume. As these challenges intensified, agency leadership recognized the need for modernization, but the timeframe for implementing changes was limited, with the upcoming tax season on the horizon.
Swift Transition to Amazon Connect
Wisconsin DOR tech leaders attended an AWS demonstration where they witnessed Amazon Connect in action and quickly recognized its potential to streamline operations, enhance service, and drive down costs. To expedite the process, AWS recommended potential partners, including ScaleCapacity. “In our search for partners, it became clear that ScaleCapacity possessed the technical expertise we required, and they were committed to meeting our tight deadlines,” states Linda Foster, director of the Customer Service Bureau in the Division of Technology Services at the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.
ScaleCapacity worked closely with the agency to outline requirements, align them with Amazon Connect features, identify necessary customizations, and establish implementation phases. “We advised the Wisconsin DOR to adopt an iterative approach to modernizing its contact center, beginning with a minimum viable product (MVP). This strategy allowed them to start quickly, achieve initial objectives, and gradually introduce new features over time. Cloud transformations and AWS facilitate this process,” explains Mark Jensen, director of sales at ScaleCapacity. “Gone are the days when setting up a contact center system meant waiting five years for improvements. We are now in an era of continuous innovation.”
With Amazon Connect, improved workflows and hundreds of customized queues efficiently direct customers to appropriately qualified agents, expediting service. The system automatically generates cases for each interaction. A particularly valued feature among Wisconsin DOR agents is Amazon Connect Contact Lens, which offers analytics and quality management functions to monitor and evaluate customer interactions. Contact Lens employs generative AI to create after-call summaries in mere seconds, replacing a cumbersome manual task that previously limited the number of calls agents could handle each day. These summaries and automatic call transcripts are searchable by keyword, facilitating more straightforward analysis and reporting.
Contact Lens also tracks and reports caller sentiment throughout interactions, giving agents and supervisors a clearer understanding of the customer experience and highlighting areas requiring follow-up or additional training. Furthermore, Contact Lens produces reliable data that simplifies decision-making, resource allocation, and forecasting. The new system is also equipped with Amazon Polly, which provides on-demand voice capabilities for self-service features, and Amazon Lex, an AI chat builder that enables users to communicate with applications using natural language voice or chat.
Cost Reduction and Enhanced Performance for Staff and Constituents
Typically, a modernization effort of this scale requires 6–12 months, according to Jensen. However, the Wisconsin DOR and ScaleCapacity completed the project in just four months, allowing staff to acclimate to the new system ahead of peak season. Transitioning from the previous model’s per-seat fees and telephony charges, the Wisconsin DOR now pays solely for the time and services utilized under the AWS consumption model. “While we anticipated cost savings, the results have exceeded expectations,” comments Foster. “We’ve managed to slash our costs by 66%.”
In addition to financial savings, the agency immediately noted enhancements in system reliability. “For years, we battled outages and needed greater stability. Our new system has been rock solid—no outages,” notes Foster. Operational performance has also dramatically improved. “Our efficiency in handling calls has increased, resulting in a significant reduction in hold times,” adds Sarah Lewis, director of the Customer Service Bureau in the Division of Income, Sales, and Excise Tax at the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. “Our average hold time previously was 1:44 minutes, and our target is under 1:30 minutes. With Amazon Connect implemented, we are now at 42 seconds—a remarkable 60% decrease in hold times.”
Moreover, supervisors and agents now enjoy access to real-time analytics via an intuitive dashboard, enabling them to identify trends, allocate resources effectively, and make informed decisions. “We now have better access to analysis of both real-time and historical data, which aids us in making more strategic decisions. If call volumes unexpectedly rise, we can quickly assess whether it’s a temporary fluctuation or a situation requiring additional resources,” states Lewis. Looking ahead, the Wisconsin DOR envisions Amazon Connect as a long-term solution that will adapt to the agency’s evolving needs.
“We had a rather intricate setup with numerous workflows and an aggressive timeline. Thanks to ScaleCapacity and Amazon Connect, we transformed our contact center ahead of peak season, reduced costs, and significantly enhanced our customer experience. Our agents are thrilled with the new system, and we have the flexibility needed to grow as required.”
– Linda Foster, Director of the Customer Service Bureau
For more insights, you can also check out this blog post on ScaleCapacity or visit CHVN, an authoritative source on this topic. Additionally, for those interested in user experiences, this Reddit thread provides excellent resources.
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