We build Agents. You build the Future.
● Public sector — Phone receptionThe AI switchboard operator for public service: no call left unanswered
At peak times, part of the public's calls go unanswered: engaged line, overflow, closing time. That is a breach of equal access to public service. Your voice agent picks up, gives information on opening hours and procedures, routes to the right department and books appointments. Hosted in France — on local inference or an isolated resource. The AI agent assists, the public officer decides.
Updated on
Deployed in a few weeks
Switchboard voice agent · hosted in France
Fictional simulation — not a client result
It is Tuesday, a peak day on the switchboard. Take the incoming calls, give information on opening hours and procedures, and route to the right department.
On the line. Of the last 12 calls: 7 information requests (opening hours, documents for an identity card, market day) handled at the first level, 3 routed to the civil registry and planning, 2 complex requests transferred to an officer.
No call was left unanswered — the queue has cleared.
⛓ Source · the authority's knowledge base + opening hours
No call was left unanswered — the queue has cleared.
⛓ Source · the authority's knowledge base + opening hours
A resident wants an appointment about a planning file. Can you schedule it?
Request qualified: submitting a prior works declaration. Slot proposed: Thursday 11am with the planning department, with the list of documents to bring sent by text message. The request is recorded in the department's diary.
If the resident insists on speaking to a person, I transfer immediately.
✎ Action · appointment proposed — the front-desk officer confirms
If the resident insists on speaking to a person, I transfer immediately.
✎ Action · appointment proposed — the front-desk officer confirms
Data hosted in France · sovereign model as an option
Data hosted in France
Hosted in FranceAI model called at its publisher, except with the Sovereign model option
No call left unanswered
GDPR & AI Act: governed deploymentTraceability & human oversight
TurnkeyDesigned, installed and operated for you
The public officer decidesThe AI agent carries out what you have authorised
For an organisation established outside the European Union, the law of its own country applies; at its request, we put equivalent safeguards in place (human review before any action, a log of the criteria, information for the people concerned).
✦ In brief
In a local authority or a public body, a Blue Lemon Agent agent handles phone reception: it picks up, gives information on opening hours, procedures and contact details, routes to the right department and books appointments — especially at peak times and on overflow. The caller is told they are speaking to a synthesised voice; complex requests are transferred to a human officer. It runs on local inference or is hosted in France, architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity. Continuity of service, equal access, and time given back to the front-desk officers. Live within a few weeks. Your public-sector staff write to it from Microsoft Teams, Slack or their email, and your users reach it on WhatsApp Business, the website chat, email or VoIP telephony — with no account to create and nothing to install. Reaching the administration from the tool people already have means less non-take-up of rights and equal access to the service. These connections are included in every plan, at no extra cost, within the number of connections set out in your agent's quote.
100%
hosted in France in the target architecture
0
transfer outside the EU with the Sovereign model option (target architecture)
2
uses ready to deploy on this scope
0
decision with a legal or significant effect taken by an agent
Reference points describing our offer, not results measured at a client. The scale of the gain is confirmed by a pilot on your own scope.
Indicative estimate, to be confirmed by a pilot on your real files (general terms of sale, article 4).
Pricing
Three options, one agent
A switchboard voice agent (reception, information, routing, appointments), installed and operated for you. Choose according to how you work. Prices exclude VAT — annual subscription, the time it takes for the gains to settle in.
Agility
Setup + controlled subscription
5,030 € incl. VAT setup
then 490 € incl. VAT/month — you invest at installation and pay a reduced subscription. Ideal for keeping the cost under control over time.
- Installation, configuration and training for your teams
- Operation, human oversight, updates and support
- Hosting in France, a dedicated and isolated resource
The simplest
Serenity
All inclusive, no setup fee
770 € incl. VAT /month
all inclusive, immediate start. No upfront investment: a single subscription. Ideal for starting quickly and simply.
- Setup included (installation, configuration, training)
- Operation, human oversight, updates and support
- Hosting in France, managed end to end
100% Sovereign
On site, you own it
7,891 € incl. VAT setup
then 640 € incl. VAT/month · + hardware from 6,599 € (one-off purchase, in addition) — a sovereign computer installed on your premises, maintained remotely. Models run locally, your data returned at the end of the contract.
- Hardware installed on your premises (you own it)
- French / European AI models run locally
- Secure remote maintenance (Pro support included)
Included in the package: hosting and AI consumption up to the volume of your capacity tier, in documents, exchanges, tokens and storage; beyond that, re-invoiced at real cost with no margin, tracked in your client area as usage statements are issued. Maintenance and supervision subscription for an initial term of 12 months for the Agility package, 24 months for the Serenity package and 36 months for the 100% Sovereign package, renewable; support levels (SLA 72 h / 24 h / 4 h) optional. Bespoke development, additional integrations or exceptional volumes are quoted separately. Support Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm. Prices include VAT at 20%: as a public body that is not VAT-registered, you cannot reclaim it.
AI model:
none of the AI models offered currently carries a fixed surcharge. When the selected model carries a cost, that cost is shown when you choose it, before you order, and re-invoiced at the cost incurred, with no mark-up; usage is billed at the publisher's price. Publishers' prices are published in US dollars: the amount re-invoiced is the amount in euros actually borne by Blue Lemon Agent on the publisher's invoice, at that invoice's exchange rate, with no commission or mark-up.
Included components and additional components Components included in the base offer: the Blue Lemon Agent software foundation, the AI models listed in the order journey, the standard channels (Microsoft Teams, Slack, WhatsApp Business, email, website chat, calendars, Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace, file storage, market VoIP telephony, professional social-media pages and accounts, Google Business Profile), hosting for the package chosen, in France by default, backups, supervision, updates and support. If adapting the AI agent to your constraints, your needs or your requests requires other paid components — a third-party publisher's software licence, paid API access to one of your applications, hosting of health data, for which French law requires an HDS-certified host (art. L. 1111-8 of the French Public Health Code), SecNumCloud-qualified hosting, a speech synthesis service, particular hardware —, they are offered to you as an option or on quotation and re-invoiced at the cost incurred; nothing is committed without your written agreement. Where the artificial intelligence model you choose entails an additional cost, that cost is shown to you before you order and re-invoiced to you at the cost incurred, with no margin.
What to expect
Go-live
2 to 3 weeks
Agent designed, channels connected, team trained.
Steady state
4 to 7 weeks
After a few weeks of real use, once the agent's behaviour matches what you expect.
Indicative estimate, adjusted to the options you keep. It is not a delivery commitment.
Use cases
The uses of AI for public phone reception
Here are the capabilities included in the agent, then the neighbouring agents that can be added to it. The agent carries out by itself what you authorise it to do; you decide what it does on its own and what it submits to a public official, to whom complex requests are transferred.
Included in your agent
The 2 capabilities essential to this promise are included, at no extra cost.
From 490 € incl. VAT / month
Switchboard & overflow
Picking up every call, absorbing peaks and overflow, transferring complex requests to an officer.
Appointment booking
Qualifying the request, scheduling the slot with the right department and sending the list of documents and the reminders.
Controls and safeguards
These 5 controls are built into the agent: they frame what it does, whatever plan you pick. They are not chosen and are not added to your order.
Human validation, exceptions and escalation
Status, safe closure and audit trail
Sources, access rights and handling of questions with no answer
Offer accessibility, easy read, multichannel access and genuine human recourse
Measure resolution, response time, non-take-up, drop-offs and satisfaction
Other needs our agents cover
Each card says how the matching agent can be obtained today: available, on quote, or not yet in the catalogue.
Accessibility and inclusion
To produce a plain-language version, prepare an easy-read transcript to the FALC method, translate or voice your content, this agent can be paired with the Accessibility and inclusion agent. None of these capabilities is included in what this offer covers as standard.
Available View the agent page →Need to go further?
These agents handle a different business process, with their own owner and their own price. They are added to this one.
Administrative information
The sourced answer on procedures, opening hours and documents to bring is handed to the multichannel administrative information agent. The scope of this page stops at taking the call, routing it and booking the appointment; human validation stays with the public officer.
Multichannel administrative information from 365 € incl. VAT / month Administrative information →Help with online procedures
Guiding the user step by step through an online procedure over the phone, cutting non-take-up and repeat calls.
Support with online procedures from 405 € incl. VAT / month Help with procedures →Voice agent (AI switchboard)
Call handling, appointments, transfer.
Voice agent (AI switchboard) from 456 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →Information and cataloguing support in libraries
Strictly in support (administrative and documentary).
Information and cataloguing support in libraries from 430 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →AI agent for administrative writers
Orders, council decisions, notes, standard letters: a sovereign AI agent, hosted in France, producing a compliant first version of your acts.
Assisted drafting of official acts and letters from 410 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →
Does your need fall outside this?
Build your agent
In 30 minutes we identify the agent that will give your staff the most time back — without oversizing the project.
Demonstration
See the agent at work
5 everyday situations, taken from those that come up most often. Pick one: the exchange unfolds as it would in your organisation.
A scripted demonstration. These exchanges show how the agent behaves — its sources, its refusals, what it leaves to your teams. Nothing is sent from this page, no model is queried here, and the matters named are fictional. That is precisely what we promise your data. The behaviours shown here — monitoring, automation rules, routing and reminders — are configured with you during deployment, from your tools, your rules and your thresholds. The architecture points named in these exchanges — location, local execution, isolation, encryption, role-based access, logging — are not a guarantee attached to the demonstration: they are those of the architecture set out in your quotation, and verified before commissioning.
The public body in this demonstration
Fictional public bodyTown of Naubourg — fictional local authority of 12,400 residents
- Sector
- Mid-sized town and its municipal social action centre — civil status, planning, schools and after-school care, social action, roads; front desk open 32 hours a week, switchboard shared with 5 neighbouring rural municipalities
- Headcount
- 148 staff, of whom 3 on the telephone front desk — two full-time and one part-time — and one head of reception and service-user relations
- Public served
- 12,400 residents, 6,200 households — 18,600 calls a year, 9,400 counter visits, 4,300 e-mails
- Order of magnitude
- 12,200 of the 18,600 calls concern 15 recurring topics, 1,680 appointments booked a year, 2,900 calls taken on behalf of the 5 neighbouring municipalities
- Tools in place
- The town's telephone system — numbers unchanged —, departmental calendars, website, front-desk knowledge base and service-user relations software: the agent plugs into them read-only, nothing is replaced and nothing is migrated
- Who decides
- The head of reception and service-user relations approves the standard answers and opens the appointment slots; each department head settles what belongs to them; the chief executive signs the direct-answer mandate
- Room for improvement
- 4,650 calls out of 18,600 go unanswered at peak hours — 25 %; the average Monday morning wait reaches 3 minutes; 78 service users out of 420 turn up for an appointment without the documents requested; and 6 of the 15 answers posted at the front desk no longer match the organisation in force
At Naubourg, three front-desk officers handle 18,600 calls a year — those of the town, those of the municipal social action centre and those of five neighbouring rural municipalities. The quality of the answers is not in question: it is availability that is missing, and a quarter of service users hang up without having spoken to anyone. The agent runs on local inference on a machine belonging to the authority, plugs into the telephone system without changing a single number, and states from its first sentence that it is a digital assistant. The exchanges below span a year, from the review of the calls to the report presented to the town council.
This public body, its figures and the exchanges that follow were invented for the demonstration. They illustrate a common situation; they describe no real service.
Switchboard voice agent · hosted in France
Fictional simulation — not a client result
I have reread your last twelve months of switchboard traffic — 18,600 calls, 9,400 counter visits, 4,300 e-mails — and I draw from it a finding your logs were carrying without anyone having the time to establish it.
The gap measured, and it governs everything else: 12,200 of your 18,600 calls concern 15 topics, always the same ones — opening hours and days, school and canteen registration, identity card and passport, civil status, planning, bulky waste, cemetery, electoral rolls, municipal hall, social assistance from the social action centre, citizenship census, parking, weekly market, grants to associations, meals on wheels. Two calls out of three already have a written answer somewhere in your own files.
What that costs today, across the three items you already measure:
· At the Monday morning peak, waiting accounts for 60 % of a call's duration — 3 minutes out of the 5 the call takes from end to end.
· A routine enquiry accounts for 36 % of the time a request consumes at the switchboard — 3 minutes 36 out of 10.
· Booking an appointment with the right department: 48 %, that is 4 minutes 48.
· And the figure that holds the other three together: 4,650 calls out of 18,600 ring out unanswered — 25 %. That is not a reception failure: it is three officers for 18,600 calls, one of them part-time.
What I propose, and it is not an intention — it is already written: I drafted the 15 answers overnight, each backed by its source — resolution, decree, internal rules or website page — with its date in plain sight. 6 of the 15 answers your officers read today no longer match the organisation in force: two departments have changed reporting lines, one has moved premises, and three rates have been revised in council since. The 6 updated versions are written, with the replaced line and the line replacing it side by side.
What that shifts once the answers are settled: waiting drops to 10 %, the routine enquiry to 8 %, appointment booking to 9 % — 30 seconds, 48 seconds, 54 seconds.
The next step, and it takes twenty minutes: you read the 3 topics that weigh the most, I bring them to you tomorrow morning. The head of reception settles the version, and it is in service the same evening — that approval is what commits the town's word, and it is the only act I leave to you. naubourg-switchboard_18600-calls-15-topics.pdf4,650 calls lost, 15 topics, 6 answers to revise
⛓ Sourced · 12 months of telephone system logs, service-user e-mails, resolutions and the town's website, 15 answers drafted
The gap measured, and it governs everything else: 12,200 of your 18,600 calls concern 15 topics, always the same ones — opening hours and days, school and canteen registration, identity card and passport, civil status, planning, bulky waste, cemetery, electoral rolls, municipal hall, social assistance from the social action centre, citizenship census, parking, weekly market, grants to associations, meals on wheels. Two calls out of three already have a written answer somewhere in your own files.
What that costs today, across the three items you already measure:
· At the Monday morning peak, waiting accounts for 60 % of a call's duration — 3 minutes out of the 5 the call takes from end to end.
· A routine enquiry accounts for 36 % of the time a request consumes at the switchboard — 3 minutes 36 out of 10.
· Booking an appointment with the right department: 48 %, that is 4 minutes 48.
· And the figure that holds the other three together: 4,650 calls out of 18,600 ring out unanswered — 25 %. That is not a reception failure: it is three officers for 18,600 calls, one of them part-time.
What I propose, and it is not an intention — it is already written: I drafted the 15 answers overnight, each backed by its source — resolution, decree, internal rules or website page — with its date in plain sight. 6 of the 15 answers your officers read today no longer match the organisation in force: two departments have changed reporting lines, one has moved premises, and three rates have been revised in council since. The 6 updated versions are written, with the replaced line and the line replacing it side by side.
What that shifts once the answers are settled: waiting drops to 10 %, the routine enquiry to 8 %, appointment booking to 9 % — 30 seconds, 48 seconds, 54 seconds.
The next step, and it takes twenty minutes: you read the 3 topics that weigh the most, I bring them to you tomorrow morning. The head of reception settles the version, and it is in service the same evening — that approval is what commits the town's word, and it is the only act I leave to you. naubourg-switchboard_18600-calls-15-topics.pdf4,650 calls lost, 15 topics, 6 answers to revise
⛓ Sourced · 12 months of telephone system logs, service-user e-mails, resolutions and the town's website, 15 answers drafted
There are three of us on the front desk, one of them part-time. I do not have a whole day to spend on standard answers. Where do I start?
With three topics, not fifteen — and I have ranked them by the number of calls they take off you, not alphabetically.
What the count of your twelve months says:
· Opening hours, days and departmental contact details: 3,140 calls a year — the switchboard's first topic, and the one whose answer never varies.
· School and canteen registration: 2,460 calls, packed into six weeks of the new school year, and it is the topic whose answer is out of date: the rate was revised in council and the front-desk notice still carries the previous one.
· Identity card and passport: 1,980 calls, of which most call for an answer from the town and an appointment, since you hold the enrolment equipment.
Those three topics make up 7,580 of the 12,200 recurring calls: three answers out of fifteen, six calls out of ten. The other 12 can wait until the end of the month without changing anything to your workload.
What I bring you within those twenty minutes, and what nobody has the time to do: the three updated answers, already written, with the governing resolution or page alongside and its date, and the number of calls each would have handled in the past year alone — 3,140, 2,460 and 1,980. You approve, or you correct with a single word. I save you the writing and the cross-checking: the decision takes twenty minutes instead of half a day, and it remains the town's — which is what makes it defensible before a service user.
The next step I propose: that after those three, I flag on my own any answer that a resolution, an organisational decree or a new rate amends, and that I write the updated version the same night. Your 15 answers will stop ageing in silence — and all it will cost you is one review, when the decision has been taken. fifteen-standard-answers_sourced-and-dated.pdf15 answers written, 6 updated, each with its source
⛓ Sourced · call count by topic over 12 months, register of resolutions, organisational decrees, 15 answers drafted
What the count of your twelve months says:
· Opening hours, days and departmental contact details: 3,140 calls a year — the switchboard's first topic, and the one whose answer never varies.
· School and canteen registration: 2,460 calls, packed into six weeks of the new school year, and it is the topic whose answer is out of date: the rate was revised in council and the front-desk notice still carries the previous one.
· Identity card and passport: 1,980 calls, of which most call for an answer from the town and an appointment, since you hold the enrolment equipment.
Those three topics make up 7,580 of the 12,200 recurring calls: three answers out of fifteen, six calls out of ten. The other 12 can wait until the end of the month without changing anything to your workload.
What I bring you within those twenty minutes, and what nobody has the time to do: the three updated answers, already written, with the governing resolution or page alongside and its date, and the number of calls each would have handled in the past year alone — 3,140, 2,460 and 1,980. You approve, or you correct with a single word. I save you the writing and the cross-checking: the decision takes twenty minutes instead of half a day, and it remains the town's — which is what makes it defensible before a service user.
The next step I propose: that after those three, I flag on my own any answer that a resolution, an organisational decree or a new rate amends, and that I write the updated version the same night. Your 15 answers will stop ageing in silence — and all it will cost you is one review, when the decision has been taken. fifteen-standard-answers_sourced-and-dated.pdf15 answers written, 6 updated, each with its source
⛓ Sourced · call count by topic over 12 months, register of resolutions, organisational decrees, 15 answers drafted
All of that assumes you hear what residents tell us on the phone. Where do their requests go?
With the 100% Sovereign package, they go nowhere. I run on local inference on a machine belonging to the authority, and nothing a service user tells me leaves your network.
Local inference means the model computes on your own machine: the service user's voice and the content of their request cross no external network to be processed. If the town would rather not host a machine, the other route is an isolated resource hosted in France, dedicated to Naubourg — no pooling with another authority, which is the condition for the continuity of your service.
What that changes, point by point:
· Service users' requests train no model, neither ours nor a third party's.
· I work read-only on your files and calendars, and the technical account I read through has no right to write — that is sturdier than a promise, because it can be checked with one command.
· Encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access — rights follow the job: the switchboard does not open social assistance files, the planning officer does not open civil status. 7 roles for your departments, and the log shows 0 out-of-role access since go-live.
· Hosting in France, under French law, architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity.
· Full log: which call, which topic, which answer given and from which source.
And one duty I honour from the first second, because it protects you as much as it informs the caller: I announce that I am a digital assistant of the town of Naubourg, not an officer. This is not an option you could switch off: the European regulation on artificial intelligence requires that anyone interacting with an AI system be informed. The caller can ask for an officer at any time — I transfer the call, and if the front desk is closed I take their number and drop the dated call-back into the department's queue.
The figure that sums all this up: 0 service-user data out of the town's network across the 18,600 calls of the year, and processing in the EU targeted.
What I propose: that I keep up to date the file your data protection officer and your council will ask for — hosting, data processed, retention periods for recordings, who accesses what. It is requested once a year and takes two days to reconstitute; the first version is already written and waiting for you. technical-framework_where-service-user-calls-live.pdf100% Sovereign package: local inference, read-only, processing in the EU targeted
✎ Framework · deployment architecture, technical account rights, role matrix, first version of the register file
Local inference means the model computes on your own machine: the service user's voice and the content of their request cross no external network to be processed. If the town would rather not host a machine, the other route is an isolated resource hosted in France, dedicated to Naubourg — no pooling with another authority, which is the condition for the continuity of your service.
What that changes, point by point:
· Service users' requests train no model, neither ours nor a third party's.
· I work read-only on your files and calendars, and the technical account I read through has no right to write — that is sturdier than a promise, because it can be checked with one command.
· Encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access — rights follow the job: the switchboard does not open social assistance files, the planning officer does not open civil status. 7 roles for your departments, and the log shows 0 out-of-role access since go-live.
· Hosting in France, under French law, architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity.
· Full log: which call, which topic, which answer given and from which source.
And one duty I honour from the first second, because it protects you as much as it informs the caller: I announce that I am a digital assistant of the town of Naubourg, not an officer. This is not an option you could switch off: the European regulation on artificial intelligence requires that anyone interacting with an AI system be informed. The caller can ask for an officer at any time — I transfer the call, and if the front desk is closed I take their number and drop the dated call-back into the department's queue.
The figure that sums all this up: 0 service-user data out of the town's network across the 18,600 calls of the year, and processing in the EU targeted.
What I propose: that I keep up to date the file your data protection officer and your council will ask for — hosting, data processed, retention periods for recordings, who accesses what. It is requested once a year and takes two days to reconstitute; the first version is already written and waiting for you. technical-framework_where-service-user-calls-live.pdf100% Sovereign package: local inference, read-only, processing in the EU targeted
✎ Framework · deployment architecture, technical account rights, role matrix, first version of the register file
Fictional simulation — not a client result
On Monday mornings the queue climbs to seven waiting calls. People hang up, call back three times, and end up coming to the counter to ask about opening hours.
Since go-live the Monday morning queue no longer exceeds one call: I answer on the first ring, including when all three of your lines are busy.
Overflow is the call that arrives when every front-desk line is taken: yesterday it rang out, today it comes to me.
What that gives, measured over the quarter:
· Unanswered calls: 25 % → 3 %. The remaining 3 % are those asking for an officer while the front desk is closed — and they leave with a dated call-back that the department sees in its queue the next morning.
· Average wait at the Monday peak: 3 minutes → 30 seconds — 60 % → 10 % of a call's duration. Across 18,600 calls, that is 775 hours of waiting spared to the people of Naubourg.
· Routine enquiry: 3 minutes 36 → 48 seconds — 36 % → 8 %. Across the 12,200 calls of the 15 topics, that is 569 hours returned to your three front-desk officers, for the service users standing in front of them at the counter.
The rule I hold to most firmly, and it protects the town's word: I answer within the field you have opened, and anything outside it leaves with the right counter, its address and its deadline. A vehicle registration question receives the name of the competent State service, the address of the online procedure and the published deadline; a waste collection question receives the inter-municipal calendar and the collection day for the street concerned. The service user leaves with a complete route rather than an approximation given in the town's name.
And within your own departments, I route on the organisation chart, not on habit: every call that needs an officer goes to the competent department with the topic already noted, the person's name and their number — the officer taking over no longer has to make them repeat.
The next step I propose: that I also answer outside the 32 opening hours, on the 15 approved topics. Your logs show 2,380 attempted calls outside opening hours last year, 1,490 of them in the evening between 5 and 7 p.m. — these are people who work during the hours your front desk is open. Give me the go-ahead and they get their answer tonight. scope-rule_who-answers-what.pdf15 topics answered, 6 families routed with address and deadline
⛓ Sourced · telephone system logs, organisation chart and internal directory, inter-municipal calendars
Overflow is the call that arrives when every front-desk line is taken: yesterday it rang out, today it comes to me.
What that gives, measured over the quarter:
· Unanswered calls: 25 % → 3 %. The remaining 3 % are those asking for an officer while the front desk is closed — and they leave with a dated call-back that the department sees in its queue the next morning.
· Average wait at the Monday peak: 3 minutes → 30 seconds — 60 % → 10 % of a call's duration. Across 18,600 calls, that is 775 hours of waiting spared to the people of Naubourg.
· Routine enquiry: 3 minutes 36 → 48 seconds — 36 % → 8 %. Across the 12,200 calls of the 15 topics, that is 569 hours returned to your three front-desk officers, for the service users standing in front of them at the counter.
The rule I hold to most firmly, and it protects the town's word: I answer within the field you have opened, and anything outside it leaves with the right counter, its address and its deadline. A vehicle registration question receives the name of the competent State service, the address of the online procedure and the published deadline; a waste collection question receives the inter-municipal calendar and the collection day for the street concerned. The service user leaves with a complete route rather than an approximation given in the town's name.
And within your own departments, I route on the organisation chart, not on habit: every call that needs an officer goes to the competent department with the topic already noted, the person's name and their number — the officer taking over no longer has to make them repeat.
The next step I propose: that I also answer outside the 32 opening hours, on the 15 approved topics. Your logs show 2,380 attempted calls outside opening hours last year, 1,490 of them in the evening between 5 and 7 p.m. — these are people who work during the hours your front desk is open. Give me the go-ahead and they get their answer tonight. scope-rule_who-answers-what.pdf15 topics answered, 6 families routed with address and deadline
⛓ Sourced · telephone system logs, organisation chart and internal directory, inter-municipal calendars
Answering, fine. But I cannot review every answer before it goes out, and I will not sign a blank cheque either.
You do not have to choose between the two: I am offering you a written mandate, capped, dated and withdrawable with a single word — and it is already drafted, waiting for a signature.
What it earns, first, because that is what decides: out of the 32,300 enquiries of the year across all channels, 12,200 calls fall within the 15 topics. The response time on a routine request goes from three call-backs spread over the week to an answer on the first call, and a question asked on a Saturday stops waiting for Monday.
What the mandate says, and it fits in six lines:
· Exact scope: the 15 topics, listed by name, and nothing else. Any question outside that list goes to the competent department with the topic noted, or comes back to you with a draft answer already written and sourced.
· Live individual files stay outside the mandate — a permit under review, a civil status situation, a social assistance file: there, I hand the officer the answer already drafted, with the file's documents alongside, and the department sends it. Over the trial quarter those answers went out within 3 hours instead of 6 days — and they went out from the department, which makes them reasoned and open to challenge; general information does not carry that weight.
· Every answer carries its source — resolution, decree, rules or website page, with its date — and the caller knows from the first sentence that they are speaking to a digital assistant of the town.
· You receive each morning the record of the previous day's calls, on one page: volumes, topics, answers given, calls transferred. A wrong answer is caught the same day, not three weeks later.
· Term: reviewed after three months, with the record of what it changed. Without an explicit decision at the review, the mandate stops — it is renewal that takes a signature, not termination.
· Withdrawal: one word from you, and direct answering stops within the minute. Calls revert to transfer to the front desk; nothing else changes.
The decision belongs to the chief executive and to you — and it is taken on a text already written, with one signature. The mandate is drafted, and so is the public notice — the one to be posted at the front desk and published on the website. You sign, the switchboard answers from the next morning, and the review is already in your diary on the 15th of the third month. direct-answer-mandate_15-topics-capped.pdf15 topics, individual files handed over drafted, 3-month review
✎ Framework · drafted mandate, list of the 15 topics, public notice, request log
What it earns, first, because that is what decides: out of the 32,300 enquiries of the year across all channels, 12,200 calls fall within the 15 topics. The response time on a routine request goes from three call-backs spread over the week to an answer on the first call, and a question asked on a Saturday stops waiting for Monday.
What the mandate says, and it fits in six lines:
· Exact scope: the 15 topics, listed by name, and nothing else. Any question outside that list goes to the competent department with the topic noted, or comes back to you with a draft answer already written and sourced.
· Live individual files stay outside the mandate — a permit under review, a civil status situation, a social assistance file: there, I hand the officer the answer already drafted, with the file's documents alongside, and the department sends it. Over the trial quarter those answers went out within 3 hours instead of 6 days — and they went out from the department, which makes them reasoned and open to challenge; general information does not carry that weight.
· Every answer carries its source — resolution, decree, rules or website page, with its date — and the caller knows from the first sentence that they are speaking to a digital assistant of the town.
· You receive each morning the record of the previous day's calls, on one page: volumes, topics, answers given, calls transferred. A wrong answer is caught the same day, not three weeks later.
· Term: reviewed after three months, with the record of what it changed. Without an explicit decision at the review, the mandate stops — it is renewal that takes a signature, not termination.
· Withdrawal: one word from you, and direct answering stops within the minute. Calls revert to transfer to the front desk; nothing else changes.
The decision belongs to the chief executive and to you — and it is taken on a text already written, with one signature. The mandate is drafted, and so is the public notice — the one to be posted at the front desk and published on the website. You sign, the switchboard answers from the next morning, and the review is already in your diary on the 15th of the third month. direct-answer-mandate_15-topics-capped.pdf15 topics, individual files handed over drafted, 3-month review
✎ Framework · drafted mandate, list of the 15 topics, public notice, request log
We have service users who read French poorly, and others who do not dare call back. They are the ones who give up, and we never see them.
They are the ones who decide whether the service is genuinely delivered to everyone, and that is the first place where I can serve you without taking anything from anyone.
What is ready, and costs your front desk not one extra hour:
· For a plain-language version, pass this content to the Accessibility, Easy Read and Translation agent — a dedicated agent, and it is not part of what this agent includes: I spot the service user who stumbles on an answer, I prepare the 15 topics with their source and their date, and it is that agent which produces the adapted version.
· The adapted version it hands back is submitted to the head of the front desk, who dates and settles it — a plain-language version is approved, it is not inferred, and it comes from a dedicated agent, not part of what this agent includes, but once settled, it is the same dated version on the phone, at the counter, on the website and in the letter.
· Over the quarter, 118 calls led to a request for a plain-language version — a dedicated agent, and it is not part of what this agent includes, 51 of them from people who had never called the town before. That one is not counted in hours: it is non-take-up avoided — non-take-up is the open entitlement that is never claimed, because the person did not know it existed or could not ask for it.
· And your website's texts have been revised against the national accessibility framework — the reference framework for accessibility improvement that applies to public websites — on the points that come from the writing: explicit link labels, heading structure, alternative texts for images. The 11 remaining points come from the site's code: I have written them up as defect sheets ready to send, each with the page, the criterion and the correction required. Your supplier only has to fix them, and you have nothing to rewrite.
What I propose next, and this is where I must be precise with you: of the 2,900 calls taken for the five neighbouring municipalities, 190 came from non-French-speaking users who had first called their own town hall, which was closed. What I do for them today, and nothing more: I recognise the request from the first sentence, I pass the call to a front-desk officer whenever one is free, and otherwise I book the appointment with the right department, with the list of documents and a dated call-back. Over the quarter: 138 got an officer within the minute, 52 left with a dated appointment, none was hung up on without a follow-up. And I tell you where the limit comes from rather than let you discover it: serving those same answers in another language falls to the Accessibility and inclusion agent, which is ordered separately — 44 of the 190 would have needed it, and I hand you their record so that you decide on a figure. What I propose right now: that the switchboard greeting say, from the first second, that the service user can ask for an officer. Say yes, and the greeting is live tomorrow morning. accessibility_referral-and-framework-points.pdf15 topics prepared for the dedicated agent, 11 sheets for the supplier
⛓ Sourced · school registrations over the past 3 years, log of calls asking for an adapted version and of calls in foreign languages, website copy audit
What is ready, and costs your front desk not one extra hour:
· For a plain-language version, pass this content to the Accessibility, Easy Read and Translation agent — a dedicated agent, and it is not part of what this agent includes: I spot the service user who stumbles on an answer, I prepare the 15 topics with their source and their date, and it is that agent which produces the adapted version.
· The adapted version it hands back is submitted to the head of the front desk, who dates and settles it — a plain-language version is approved, it is not inferred, and it comes from a dedicated agent, not part of what this agent includes, but once settled, it is the same dated version on the phone, at the counter, on the website and in the letter.
· Over the quarter, 118 calls led to a request for a plain-language version — a dedicated agent, and it is not part of what this agent includes, 51 of them from people who had never called the town before. That one is not counted in hours: it is non-take-up avoided — non-take-up is the open entitlement that is never claimed, because the person did not know it existed or could not ask for it.
· And your website's texts have been revised against the national accessibility framework — the reference framework for accessibility improvement that applies to public websites — on the points that come from the writing: explicit link labels, heading structure, alternative texts for images. The 11 remaining points come from the site's code: I have written them up as defect sheets ready to send, each with the page, the criterion and the correction required. Your supplier only has to fix them, and you have nothing to rewrite.
What I propose next, and this is where I must be precise with you: of the 2,900 calls taken for the five neighbouring municipalities, 190 came from non-French-speaking users who had first called their own town hall, which was closed. What I do for them today, and nothing more: I recognise the request from the first sentence, I pass the call to a front-desk officer whenever one is free, and otherwise I book the appointment with the right department, with the list of documents and a dated call-back. Over the quarter: 138 got an officer within the minute, 52 left with a dated appointment, none was hung up on without a follow-up. And I tell you where the limit comes from rather than let you discover it: serving those same answers in another language falls to the Accessibility and inclusion agent, which is ordered separately — 44 of the 190 would have needed it, and I hand you their record so that you decide on a figure. What I propose right now: that the switchboard greeting say, from the first second, that the service user can ask for an officer. Say yes, and the greeting is live tomorrow morning. accessibility_referral-and-framework-points.pdf15 topics prepared for the dedicated agent, 11 sheets for the supplier
⛓ Sourced · school registrations over the past 3 years, log of calls asking for an adapted version and of calls in foreign languages, website copy audit
Fictional simulation — not a client result
Appointments take us the most time on the phone: finding the department, finding the slot, explaining the documents, and starting again when the person calls back.
The appointment is booked during the call, on the slots you have opened, and the service user hangs up with their list of documents by message.
What I do, in order:
· I qualify the request — the exact procedure, the person's situation, the time to allow — and it is that qualification which designates the department, not the caller's first idea. Over the quarter, 118 requests out of 420 initially aimed at a department that was not the right one.
· I offer a slot with the competent department, only on the slots the head of reception has opened, never outside them, and I book it in the department's calendar.
· I send the list of documents to bring, taken from the form in force, and a reminder the day before.
· I leave the call record with the department: purpose, situation, documents announced. The officer receiving the person opens a file that has already been started.
The time this shifts: booking an appointment with the right department goes from 48 % to 9 % of the time it takes — from 4 minutes 48 to 54 seconds. Across 1,680 appointments a year, that is 109 hours going back to the service users standing at the counter.
And for the service user, the change shows elsewhere: they no longer call back to find out what to bring. Second-round calls — “what do I need to bring?” — have gone from 340 to 46 over the quarter.
The next step I propose: open appointment booking on the three procedures that weigh the most — identity card and passport, school registration, the social action centre's social surgery. They account for 1,190 of the 1,680 appointments of the year: that is where the 109 hours are won, and nowhere else. You open the slots, I book the appointments from the first call. appointment-booking_420-of-the-quarter.pdf118 requests rerouted, 340 call-backs down to 46
⛓ Sourced · departmental calendars, forms in force, log of calls and call-backs
What I do, in order:
· I qualify the request — the exact procedure, the person's situation, the time to allow — and it is that qualification which designates the department, not the caller's first idea. Over the quarter, 118 requests out of 420 initially aimed at a department that was not the right one.
· I offer a slot with the competent department, only on the slots the head of reception has opened, never outside them, and I book it in the department's calendar.
· I send the list of documents to bring, taken from the form in force, and a reminder the day before.
· I leave the call record with the department: purpose, situation, documents announced. The officer receiving the person opens a file that has already been started.
The time this shifts: booking an appointment with the right department goes from 48 % to 9 % of the time it takes — from 4 minutes 48 to 54 seconds. Across 1,680 appointments a year, that is 109 hours going back to the service users standing at the counter.
And for the service user, the change shows elsewhere: they no longer call back to find out what to bring. Second-round calls — “what do I need to bring?” — have gone from 340 to 46 over the quarter.
The next step I propose: open appointment booking on the three procedures that weigh the most — identity card and passport, school registration, the social action centre's social surgery. They account for 1,190 of the 1,680 appointments of the year: that is where the 109 hours are won, and nowhere else. You open the slots, I book the appointments from the first call. appointment-booking_420-of-the-quarter.pdf118 requests rerouted, 340 call-backs down to 46
⛓ Sourced · departmental calendars, forms in force, log of calls and call-backs
The worst are the people who turn up without their documents. They leave, they come back, and the slot is lost for everyone.
I check the documents before the appointment, not at the counter: the service user sends me their papers, I read them and I tell them what is missing while there is still time to find it.
A completeness check is the verification that every document the form requires is present, and legible.
How it works, concretely:
· Three days before the appointment I recall the list and offer the person to upload their documents to the town's secure drop-off — a photograph of the paper included, since that is what people have to hand.
· I read each document and compare it with the form: the nature of the paper, its validity, its legibility. An electricity bill older than three months is flagged beforehand, not at the counter.
· I answer the service user the same day: what is fine, what is missing, and where to obtain it — with the counter, the address and the deadline when the document comes from elsewhere.
· The department receives the checked file the day before, documents sorted in the order of the form.
The result measured over the quarter:
· Service users turning up without the documents requested: 78 out of 420 → 9 out of 420. 69 pointless journeys spared to residents, and 69 slots that were actually used.
· Appointments completed on the first visit: 341 out of 420 → 402 out of 420.
· And for the 9 remaining, the department knew the day before: the slot was reassigned to a service user from the waiting list, never left empty.
The decision to accept or refuse a document remains with the department's officer — and I hand it to them in a few minutes, complete file, each document matched to the line of the form it satisfies. That examination is what commits the town, and it is carried out on a sorted file rather than on a pile.
What I propose next: extend the check to the social action centre's assistance files, where a missing document costs the most. Of the 214 files of the quarter, 61 were processed twice over for want of one paper — and each of those 61 files kept an entitlement waiting. Give me the form and I check the next ones from the coming week. document-check_78-down-to-9.pdf420 appointments, 69 journeys avoided, 61 social files targeted
⛓ Sourced · procedure forms, the town's secure drop-off, appointment register and social action centre files
A completeness check is the verification that every document the form requires is present, and legible.
How it works, concretely:
· Three days before the appointment I recall the list and offer the person to upload their documents to the town's secure drop-off — a photograph of the paper included, since that is what people have to hand.
· I read each document and compare it with the form: the nature of the paper, its validity, its legibility. An electricity bill older than three months is flagged beforehand, not at the counter.
· I answer the service user the same day: what is fine, what is missing, and where to obtain it — with the counter, the address and the deadline when the document comes from elsewhere.
· The department receives the checked file the day before, documents sorted in the order of the form.
The result measured over the quarter:
· Service users turning up without the documents requested: 78 out of 420 → 9 out of 420. 69 pointless journeys spared to residents, and 69 slots that were actually used.
· Appointments completed on the first visit: 341 out of 420 → 402 out of 420.
· And for the 9 remaining, the department knew the day before: the slot was reassigned to a service user from the waiting list, never left empty.
The decision to accept or refuse a document remains with the department's officer — and I hand it to them in a few minutes, complete file, each document matched to the line of the form it satisfies. That examination is what commits the town, and it is carried out on a sorted file rather than on a pile.
What I propose next: extend the check to the social action centre's assistance files, where a missing document costs the most. Of the 214 files of the quarter, 61 were processed twice over for want of one paper — and each of those 61 files kept an entitlement waiting. Give me the form and I check the next ones from the coming week. document-check_78-down-to-9.pdf420 appointments, 69 journeys avoided, 61 social files targeted
⛓ Sourced · procedure forms, the town's secure drop-off, appointment register and social action centre files
And the appointments nobody turns up for? We block slots for nothing while others wait three weeks.
They have gone from 63 to 18 over the quarter, and all 18 freed slots were reassigned the same day.
What I changed, and it is measured, not assumed:
· A reminder the day before by message, with the list of documents and a link to reschedule in one word. It is the rescheduling link that makes the difference: 41 service users used it over the quarter, and 41 slots went back into the list instead of being lost.
· A reminder two hours ahead for morning appointments, the most missed in your register: 24 of last year's 63 no-shows.
· And a waiting list I call as soon as a slot frees up: out of 18 freed slots, 18 service users called back, 16 turned up. The average waiting time for an identity card appointment has gone from 21 days to 12.
What that is worth to the town, put plainly: those 12 days gained cost neither one extra slot nor one extra officer hour — they come from the slots nobody was using. That is reception capacity recovered inside the existing organisation.
The next step I propose, and it takes only a decision: open two Thursday evening slots across the six weeks of the new school year. Your logs show 640 registration calls packed into those six weeks, and 210 service users calling back because the slot offered fell during their working hours. You open the slots, I fill them, and I hand you the occupancy rate at the end of the six weeks.
⛓ Sourced · appointment register, log of reminders and reschedulings, waiting list
What I changed, and it is measured, not assumed:
· A reminder the day before by message, with the list of documents and a link to reschedule in one word. It is the rescheduling link that makes the difference: 41 service users used it over the quarter, and 41 slots went back into the list instead of being lost.
· A reminder two hours ahead for morning appointments, the most missed in your register: 24 of last year's 63 no-shows.
· And a waiting list I call as soon as a slot frees up: out of 18 freed slots, 18 service users called back, 16 turned up. The average waiting time for an identity card appointment has gone from 21 days to 12.
What that is worth to the town, put plainly: those 12 days gained cost neither one extra slot nor one extra officer hour — they come from the slots nobody was using. That is reception capacity recovered inside the existing organisation.
The next step I propose, and it takes only a decision: open two Thursday evening slots across the six weeks of the new school year. Your logs show 640 registration calls packed into those six weeks, and 210 service users calling back because the slot offered fell during their working hours. You open the slots, I fill them, and I hand you the occupancy rate at the end of the six weeks.
⛓ Sourced · appointment register, log of reminders and reschedulings, waiting list
Fictional simulation — not a client result
Many service users call because they are stuck on an online procedure. We have no time to walk them through screen by screen, and they give up.
I walk them through screen by screen, on the phone, and I start with the one thing that decides everything: the list of documents to prepare BEFORE logging in.
An online procedure is a formality carried out entirely online, on an administration's website. The most frequent abandonment is not technical: the person starts, one paper is missing, they close the page and never return. Giving the list before starting removes the cause, not the symptom.
What that gave over the quarter: 96 assisted procedures, 84 carried through to the end. The other 12 were waiting for a document to be requested elsewhere, and each person left with the counter, the address and the deadline to obtain it — then I called the 12 back, and 9 completed their procedure within ten days.
On a service user's personal account, the lawful route is also the fastest, and it is the one I take: I read them the screen, I tell them what is being asked and why, I dictate the values they have in front of them in their own papers — civil status, address, file numbers, everything that gets copied out and mistyped —, and it is they who enter their credentials and validate. Their credentials are never entrusted to me and do not need to be: that click is what makes the procedure theirs, therefore valid, and puts it beyond any challenge. Data entry has gone from 24 minutes to 9, and the service user hangs up with a summary of what has been filed and what is left to do.
What that gives back to the town, beyond the minutes: those 84 completed procedures are 84 journeys to the town hall that did not happen, and 84 people who did not give up on an open entitlement.
The next step I propose: a telephone support session on Wednesdays from 5 to 7 p.m., held by me, with a front-desk officer on call for anything outside the 15 topics. Over a trial quarter, 38 service users used it, 22 of them people who had never called the town during opening hours. Say yes and the announcement goes out with the next municipal newsletter. online-procedure-support_96-assisted.pdf84 completed, 24 minutes down to 9, 0 credentials entrusted
⛓ Sourced · assistance log, screens of the national online procedures, call-back register
An online procedure is a formality carried out entirely online, on an administration's website. The most frequent abandonment is not technical: the person starts, one paper is missing, they close the page and never return. Giving the list before starting removes the cause, not the symptom.
What that gave over the quarter: 96 assisted procedures, 84 carried through to the end. The other 12 were waiting for a document to be requested elsewhere, and each person left with the counter, the address and the deadline to obtain it — then I called the 12 back, and 9 completed their procedure within ten days.
On a service user's personal account, the lawful route is also the fastest, and it is the one I take: I read them the screen, I tell them what is being asked and why, I dictate the values they have in front of them in their own papers — civil status, address, file numbers, everything that gets copied out and mistyped —, and it is they who enter their credentials and validate. Their credentials are never entrusted to me and do not need to be: that click is what makes the procedure theirs, therefore valid, and puts it beyond any challenge. Data entry has gone from 24 minutes to 9, and the service user hangs up with a summary of what has been filed and what is left to do.
What that gives back to the town, beyond the minutes: those 84 completed procedures are 84 journeys to the town hall that did not happen, and 84 people who did not give up on an open entitlement.
The next step I propose: a telephone support session on Wednesdays from 5 to 7 p.m., held by me, with a front-desk officer on call for anything outside the 15 topics. Over a trial quarter, 38 service users used it, 22 of them people who had never called the town during opening hours. Say yes and the announcement goes out with the next municipal newsletter. online-procedure-support_96-assisted.pdf84 completed, 24 minutes down to 9, 0 credentials entrusted
⛓ Sourced · assistance log, screens of the national online procedures, call-back register
And what happens at night and at weekends? Today nobody knows what was said before Monday morning.
Every call, at any hour, leaves a written trace in the queue of the department concerned — and your officers find it on arrival, sorted, not to be reconstructed.
What I file after each call:
· The call record: date, time, topic, what the service user asked, the answer given and the source behind it, and the follow-up if there is one.
· The call report for requests that need an officer — written out, not a recording to listen to again — with the name, the number and the purpose.
· The follow-up letter when the request calls for one: appointment confirmation, list of documents, referral to an outside counter, acknowledgement of a complaint. Over the quarter, 268 follow-up letters prepared, 268 reviewed by an officer before sending.
What that changes on Monday morning: your three officers used to open the week on 40 voicemails to listen through — 4 hours 30 a week between the three of them. Today they open on a page of records already sorted by department. That is not time saved on work, it is time saved on reconstruction — and it is the costliest kind for a front desk.
Of last year's 2,380 attempted calls outside opening hours: 1,940 fall within the 15 topics and get their answer within the second; 440 leave a dated call-back, and 412 were called back within the next open half-day.
What I propose next: that the morning record also go to the four most solicited department heads, filtered on what concerns them. Over the quarter, 61 requests would have reached them two days earlier on average — and 61 service users would have had their answer before calling back. One word from you and the first record goes out tomorrow. call-record_records-reports-and-letters.pdf268 follow-up letters, 4 h 30 a week returned to the front desk
⛓ Sourced · call records for the quarter, departmental queues, follow-up letter log
What I file after each call:
· The call record: date, time, topic, what the service user asked, the answer given and the source behind it, and the follow-up if there is one.
· The call report for requests that need an officer — written out, not a recording to listen to again — with the name, the number and the purpose.
· The follow-up letter when the request calls for one: appointment confirmation, list of documents, referral to an outside counter, acknowledgement of a complaint. Over the quarter, 268 follow-up letters prepared, 268 reviewed by an officer before sending.
What that changes on Monday morning: your three officers used to open the week on 40 voicemails to listen through — 4 hours 30 a week between the three of them. Today they open on a page of records already sorted by department. That is not time saved on work, it is time saved on reconstruction — and it is the costliest kind for a front desk.
Of last year's 2,380 attempted calls outside opening hours: 1,940 fall within the 15 topics and get their answer within the second; 440 leave a dated call-back, and 412 were called back within the next open half-day.
What I propose next: that the morning record also go to the four most solicited department heads, filtered on what concerns them. Over the quarter, 61 requests would have reached them two days earlier on average — and 61 service users would have had their answer before calling back. One word from you and the first record goes out tomorrow. call-record_records-reports-and-letters.pdf268 follow-up letters, 4 h 30 a week returned to the front desk
⛓ Sourced · call records for the quarter, departmental queues, follow-up letter log
The five rural municipalities whose calls we take each have their own hours, their own rates and their own town hall secretary. We often answer beside the point.
Each municipality has its own set of answers, hours and rates — I answer in the name of the municipality called, never in Naubourg's name.
What is in place, municipality by municipality:
· Five separate answer bases, built on each municipality's resolutions and decrees, with the date of each. Nothing is pooled of what must remain a municipality's own: not a rate, not an opening hour, not a department's name.
· A first line of reception for the five secretariats — hours, civil status, planning, municipal hall, appointment booking — and transfer to the town hall secretary as soon as the request leaves the scope she has approved.
· 2,900 calls absorbed over the year for the five municipalities, of which 1,870 handled at first line and 1,030 passed on with the topic noted.
What that gives back to those five secretariats: each of those municipalities opens between 8 and 14 hours a week with a single person on the secretariat. The 1,870 calls handled at first line represent 112 hours returned to five town hall secretaries — and, for their residents, a switchboard that answers even when the town hall is closed.
And for Naubourg, which carries the service: your three officers no longer take the 2,900 calls of the neighbouring municipalities in the middle of their own. That is reception capacity returned to your own service users, without any municipality losing control of what is said in its name.
What I propose next: a monthly record per municipality, sent to each town hall secretary — calls received, topics, answers given, transfers. In the first month, two municipalities found a topic they were not seeing: questions about the bulky waste calendar doubled after the round was changed. I have written them the one-page notice that answers before the call: say yes, and it goes out with their next newsletter. shared-switchboard_five-municipalities.pdf2,900 calls, 5 separate bases, 112 hours returned
⛓ Sourced · resolutions and decrees of the 5 municipalities, call log by municipality, secretariat opening hours
What is in place, municipality by municipality:
· Five separate answer bases, built on each municipality's resolutions and decrees, with the date of each. Nothing is pooled of what must remain a municipality's own: not a rate, not an opening hour, not a department's name.
· A first line of reception for the five secretariats — hours, civil status, planning, municipal hall, appointment booking — and transfer to the town hall secretary as soon as the request leaves the scope she has approved.
· 2,900 calls absorbed over the year for the five municipalities, of which 1,870 handled at first line and 1,030 passed on with the topic noted.
What that gives back to those five secretariats: each of those municipalities opens between 8 and 14 hours a week with a single person on the secretariat. The 1,870 calls handled at first line represent 112 hours returned to five town hall secretaries — and, for their residents, a switchboard that answers even when the town hall is closed.
And for Naubourg, which carries the service: your three officers no longer take the 2,900 calls of the neighbouring municipalities in the middle of their own. That is reception capacity returned to your own service users, without any municipality losing control of what is said in its name.
What I propose next: a monthly record per municipality, sent to each town hall secretary — calls received, topics, answers given, transfers. In the first month, two municipalities found a topic they were not seeing: questions about the bulky waste calendar doubled after the round was changed. I have written them the one-page notice that answers before the call: say yes, and it goes out with their next newsletter. shared-switchboard_five-municipalities.pdf2,900 calls, 5 separate bases, 112 hours returned
⛓ Sourced · resolutions and decrees of the 5 municipalities, call log by municipality, secretariat opening hours
Fictional simulation — not a client result
The town council will ask me what this has given us after a year. I need a figure I can defend in front of elected members.
678 officer hours returned to the front desk over the year — more than nineteen weeks of a full-time officer's work, spread across three officers — and the calculation is yours, it fits in two lines.
The calculation, item by item, so that you can redo it:
· Routine enquiry: 12,200 calls a year, 3 minutes 36 brought down to 48 seconds — 36 % → 8 % of the time of the request — that is 569 hours.
· Booking an appointment with the right department: 1,680 a year, 4 minutes 48 brought down to 54 seconds — 48 % → 9 % — that is 109 hours.
What those hours are, and it is what defends itself best before elected members: officer time returned to the service, at unchanged headcount — no post cut, no post created. It is the sturdiest argument you can carry into the chamber: it is disputed neither by the staff nor by the opposition, and it can be checked against your own logs.
And the third benchmark is not counted in officer hours, but it is the one service users feel: waiting at the peak goes from 3 minutes to 30 seconds — 60 % → 10 % of a call's duration —, that is 775 hours of waiting spared to the people of Naubourg across 18,600 calls.
What those hours became, according to your own records:
· Unanswered calls: 25 % → 3 %.
· Service users turning up for an appointment without their documents: 78 out of 420 → 9 out of 420, and 402 appointments out of 420 completed on the first visit.
· Waiting time for an identity card appointment: 21 days → 12.
· Online procedures assisted: 96, of which 84 carried through, and 9 of the remaining 12 completed after a call-back.
· Calls for which a plain-language version was requested: 118, 51 of them from people who had never called the town — the adaptation is the job of the Accessibility, Easy Read and Translation agent, a dedicated agent, and it is not part of what this agent includes. That one is not counted in hours either, and it is perhaps the only one your elected members will remember.
What I propose for the meeting: the calculation page is written and fits on one side — two lines of arithmetic, five waiting times, three framework measures. Hand it to the councillors as it stands with the agenda: a figure read the day before is discussed better than a figure discovered in the chamber. yearly-review_678-hours-returned-to-the-front-desk.pdf60→10, 36→8, 48→9, and the calculation redoable on one side
⛓ Sourced · telephone system logs, appointment register, assistance log, front-desk records
The calculation, item by item, so that you can redo it:
· Routine enquiry: 12,200 calls a year, 3 minutes 36 brought down to 48 seconds — 36 % → 8 % of the time of the request — that is 569 hours.
· Booking an appointment with the right department: 1,680 a year, 4 minutes 48 brought down to 54 seconds — 48 % → 9 % — that is 109 hours.
What those hours are, and it is what defends itself best before elected members: officer time returned to the service, at unchanged headcount — no post cut, no post created. It is the sturdiest argument you can carry into the chamber: it is disputed neither by the staff nor by the opposition, and it can be checked against your own logs.
And the third benchmark is not counted in officer hours, but it is the one service users feel: waiting at the peak goes from 3 minutes to 30 seconds — 60 % → 10 % of a call's duration —, that is 775 hours of waiting spared to the people of Naubourg across 18,600 calls.
What those hours became, according to your own records:
· Unanswered calls: 25 % → 3 %.
· Service users turning up for an appointment without their documents: 78 out of 420 → 9 out of 420, and 402 appointments out of 420 completed on the first visit.
· Waiting time for an identity card appointment: 21 days → 12.
· Online procedures assisted: 96, of which 84 carried through, and 9 of the remaining 12 completed after a call-back.
· Calls for which a plain-language version was requested: 118, 51 of them from people who had never called the town — the adaptation is the job of the Accessibility, Easy Read and Translation agent, a dedicated agent, and it is not part of what this agent includes. That one is not counted in hours either, and it is perhaps the only one your elected members will remember.
What I propose for the meeting: the calculation page is written and fits on one side — two lines of arithmetic, five waiting times, three framework measures. Hand it to the councillors as it stands with the agenda: a figure read the day before is discussed better than a figure discovered in the chamber. yearly-review_678-hours-returned-to-the-front-desk.pdf60→10, 36→8, 48→9, and the calculation redoable on one side
⛓ Sourced · telephone system logs, appointment register, assistance log, front-desk records
The elected members will look first at routing: it decides whether a service user leaves with the right answer. What do you route on, and what has it given?
I route on the organisation chart in force, and every answer carries its source: across 6,360 calls traced over two quarters, 6,360 carry the source of the answer given — which is what allows a disputed call to be reopened and to state exactly what was said, from which text, and at what time.
The rule that holds everything else together: information I have not read, I do not give — I say what I know, what I cannot find, and I pass the call on with the question already asked. An opening hour I cannot find never becomes “probably the same”, a missing rate never becomes “presumably unchanged”: I name the department that holds it and file the written request in its queue. Over the quarter, 148 missing pieces of information, 148 requests filed, 139 answers back within five days — and each became one more standard answer.
And the figure I publish about myself, because it comes from the same record: out of the 3,100 calls of the first quarter, 214 were misrouted — 6.9 %.
The real cause, measured and not supposed: 171 of the 214 misroutings concerned three departments that had changed reporting line or premises without the internal directory following — the sports department moved under the community life directorate, the housing counter relocated to the social action centre, the revenue office installed on the first floor. It was not a listening error: I was routing faithfully on an organisation chart that had aged. The other 43 concerned requests straddling two departments, where the service user themselves hesitated.
What I did with it, and it is measured: the internal directory is reconciled every night with the organisational decrees, and any straddling request now goes to the department that handles it most often, with the other department named in plain sight for the officer taking over.
The following quarter: 36 misroutings out of 3,260 calls — 1.1 %. And all 36 are straddling requests, not one due to the directory.
What I propose now: that the 43 straddling requests of the two quarters become 6 more routing rules, written, for your review. Of the 36 errors of the second quarter, 29 already fell within one of them — it is the same correction as the directory one, taken one notch further. corrected-routings_214-then-36.pdf6.9 % → 1.1 %, measured cause, 6,360 sourced calls
⛓ Sourced · log of routings and their corrections over two quarters, organisational decrees, internal directory
The rule that holds everything else together: information I have not read, I do not give — I say what I know, what I cannot find, and I pass the call on with the question already asked. An opening hour I cannot find never becomes “probably the same”, a missing rate never becomes “presumably unchanged”: I name the department that holds it and file the written request in its queue. Over the quarter, 148 missing pieces of information, 148 requests filed, 139 answers back within five days — and each became one more standard answer.
And the figure I publish about myself, because it comes from the same record: out of the 3,100 calls of the first quarter, 214 were misrouted — 6.9 %.
The real cause, measured and not supposed: 171 of the 214 misroutings concerned three departments that had changed reporting line or premises without the internal directory following — the sports department moved under the community life directorate, the housing counter relocated to the social action centre, the revenue office installed on the first floor. It was not a listening error: I was routing faithfully on an organisation chart that had aged. The other 43 concerned requests straddling two departments, where the service user themselves hesitated.
What I did with it, and it is measured: the internal directory is reconciled every night with the organisational decrees, and any straddling request now goes to the department that handles it most often, with the other department named in plain sight for the officer taking over.
The following quarter: 36 misroutings out of 3,260 calls — 1.1 %. And all 36 are straddling requests, not one due to the directory.
What I propose now: that the 43 straddling requests of the two quarters become 6 more routing rules, written, for your review. Of the 36 errors of the second quarter, 29 already fell within one of them — it is the same correction as the directory one, taken one notch further. corrected-routings_214-then-36.pdf6.9 % → 1.1 %, measured cause, 6,360 sourced calls
⛓ Sourced · log of routings and their corrections over two quarters, organisational decrees, internal directory
Last question, and it is the one that will decide the council: what do you do on your own, and if in a year we want to stop, how stuck are we?
Three automatic actions, not one more, each withdrawable with a single word — and a way out that can be checked before deliberating, not after.
The three actions:
· I answer the phone. Any call arriving while your lines are taken or the front desk is closed gets an answer or a dated call-back. And the reverse holds too: as soon as an officer is free, I pass them the call rather than keep it — a service user who asks for a person always gets one.
· I file the record of each call in the queue of the department concerned, the same day. It contains only what the service user said and the answer given, never an assessment, and it is deleted at the retention period you have set.
· I flag any standard answer that a new resolution, organisational decree or rate amends, and I write the updated version overnight. That action is what keeps the directory, the rates and the opening hours up to date in my answers, without anyone having to think about it.
Everything else waits for a decision, and it is written into the mandate: nothing goes out on an individual file, no appointment outside the slots you open, no commitment on a department's deadline. Across 6,360 traced calls, those rules held 6,360 times.
And if an elected member asks for an activity indicator — that is a legitimate request: I produce it, and I bring you what makes it lawful: prior information of the staff, a written purpose, a retention period. I propose it by department rather than by person, and I tell you why: on a front desk of three officers, a “by department” indicator still points at someone — I tell you before, not after, and the choice belongs to the chief executive in full knowledge.
Now the way out, since it is what will decide:
· Your numbers do not change on the way in, so they do not change on the way out. The telephone system stays yours: you remove one forwarding rule, and the switchboard works exactly as before.
· The 15 standard answers, the 11 website defect sheets and the 5 neighbouring bases belong to the authority — they are made of its own material, they stay in its files, readable without us.
· The call log is handed back in an open format, or destroyed — you choose, and the question is settled at go-live, not on departure.
· No migration on the way in, therefore no migration on the way out: your service-user relations software is not replaced, your calendars stay yours, no format belongs to us.
What I propose so that this does not stay a sentence: a dry-run exit at the end of the first quarter, half a day: the forwarding rule is removed, we check that the front desk works as before, we switch back on. The protocol is written, it fits on one page, and the day that costs you least is the first Friday afternoon of July — your switchboard takes only 26 calls then on average. The council will know what the promise is worth before having committed a second year. what-the-agent-does-alone_and-what-is-logged.pdf3 reversible actions, 6,360 traced calls technical-framework_where-service-user-calls-live.pdfReversibility: 0 migration in, 0 migration out
✎ Framework · settings of the automatic actions, call log, export formats, dry-run exit protocol
The three actions:
· I answer the phone. Any call arriving while your lines are taken or the front desk is closed gets an answer or a dated call-back. And the reverse holds too: as soon as an officer is free, I pass them the call rather than keep it — a service user who asks for a person always gets one.
· I file the record of each call in the queue of the department concerned, the same day. It contains only what the service user said and the answer given, never an assessment, and it is deleted at the retention period you have set.
· I flag any standard answer that a new resolution, organisational decree or rate amends, and I write the updated version overnight. That action is what keeps the directory, the rates and the opening hours up to date in my answers, without anyone having to think about it.
Everything else waits for a decision, and it is written into the mandate: nothing goes out on an individual file, no appointment outside the slots you open, no commitment on a department's deadline. Across 6,360 traced calls, those rules held 6,360 times.
And if an elected member asks for an activity indicator — that is a legitimate request: I produce it, and I bring you what makes it lawful: prior information of the staff, a written purpose, a retention period. I propose it by department rather than by person, and I tell you why: on a front desk of three officers, a “by department” indicator still points at someone — I tell you before, not after, and the choice belongs to the chief executive in full knowledge.
Now the way out, since it is what will decide:
· Your numbers do not change on the way in, so they do not change on the way out. The telephone system stays yours: you remove one forwarding rule, and the switchboard works exactly as before.
· The 15 standard answers, the 11 website defect sheets and the 5 neighbouring bases belong to the authority — they are made of its own material, they stay in its files, readable without us.
· The call log is handed back in an open format, or destroyed — you choose, and the question is settled at go-live, not on departure.
· No migration on the way in, therefore no migration on the way out: your service-user relations software is not replaced, your calendars stay yours, no format belongs to us.
What I propose so that this does not stay a sentence: a dry-run exit at the end of the first quarter, half a day: the forwarding rule is removed, we check that the front desk works as before, we switch back on. The protocol is written, it fits on one page, and the day that costs you least is the first Friday afternoon of July — your switchboard takes only 26 calls then on average. The council will know what the promise is worth before having committed a second year. what-the-agent-does-alone_and-what-is-logged.pdf3 reversible actions, 6,360 traced calls technical-framework_where-service-user-calls-live.pdfReversibility: 0 migration in, 0 migration out
✎ Framework · settings of the automatic actions, call log, export formats, dry-run exit protocol
Data hosted in France · sovereign model as an option
Your case is not here? That is exactly what a 30-minute conversation is for. Discuss your project →
How it works
The stages of your AI agent project
1
Audit & scoping
30 minutes to target the use case with the best return.
2
Quote or direct sign-up
A catalogue offer is bought online; a specific need gets a costed quote.
3
Design
We design the agent and its guardrails.
4
Integration & testing
We connect your tools to the agent, which is itself hosted in France.
5
Rollout
Going live and training your team.
6
Operation
Continuous supervision and improvement.
The context
Why AI matters to phone reception — and why authorities hesitate
The public expects a quick answer and equal access to public service, at any hour. But the switchboard is saturated at peaks, front-desk officers are constantly interrupted, and callers' data is sensitive public data.
! The issue
The switchboard is caught between people who want an immediate answer and front-desk officers overwhelmed at peak times: engaged lines, lost calls, queues. That is a breach of equal access to public service. Yet most consumer voice AI solutions amount to entrusting the public's contact details and the content of their requests to a third party, often hosted outside Europe and subject to the Cloud Act.
✓ Our answer
For an administration, voice AI is only of interest if it is sovereign and confidential by design. Local inference or an isolated resource hosted in France, systematic transfer to a human officer on sensitive requests, clear notice to the caller: continuity of service is never paid for in exposed public data. The aim is not to replace the front-desk officer, but to absorb the peaks and give them back time for the people at the counter.
The decisive point
The public's data: sovereignty & compliance
A switchboard handles personal data belonging to users of public service. Here is how the architecture of our agents protects it, call by call.
Local inference
With the 100% Sovereign package, the agent runs on a machine belonging to the authority: no call data leaves the network, nothing passes through a public cloud.
Hosting in France
Otherwise, with the Agility and Serenity packages, a dedicated, isolated resource hosted in France, under French law: data hosted in France; the AI model is called at its publisher, except with the Sovereign model option.
Reduced extraterritorial exposure
Architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity for the public's data: our architecture stays out of the American hyperscalers' reach, even when hosted in Europe.
One isolated resource per administration
No pooling of data: an environment strictly dedicated to your authority or institution.
Encryption & controlled access
Encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access (RBAC), strong authentication and logging of the calls handled.
AI Act: governed deployment
The agent carries out what you have authorised; the caller is told they are speaking to an AI; human transfer and oversight from end to end.
What depends on the architecture chosen These points are not general guarantees: they are settled deployment by deployment, in the quotation.
- The applicable location is that of the architecture set out in the quotation and verified before commissioning.
- Local execution is announced only for the configuration explicitly described and accepted in the quotation.
- The applicable isolation depends on the deployment mode set out in the quotation; no dedicated isolation is presumed.
- The encryption mechanisms in transit and at rest, their components and key management are those documented for the architecture chosen.
- Roles and permissions are configured and accepted for the identities and systems actually connected.
- The events logged, their content, their retention period and who may access them are defined for the deployment chosen.
For the most sensitive data, SecNumCloud and HDS options are available depending on your requirements. A single architecture is designed to answer both the GDPR and extraterritorial exposure. Designed for deployment in line with the GDPR and the AI Act, after the processing, roles and context-specific risks have been assessed.
The gain
How much time can a switchboard win back?
By handling the first level and absorbing the peaks, an authority can aim for a sharp reduction in lost calls and waiting time — time given back to front-desk officers for the people present and the complex requests.
A caller's waiting time at peak hours
Everyday information (opening hours, procedures)
Booking an appointment with the right department
Qualitative, non-contractual comparison: the proportions shown illustrate the shift of the work towards review, they represent no measurement. Every output of the agent is reviewed and approved by a competent person.
Indicative estimate, to be confirmed by a pilot on your real files (general terms of sale, article 4).
Our commitment
Four guarantees that matter to a public service
With 100% Sovereign, the public's data never leaves the administrationData hosted in France on an isolated resource; the AI model is called at its publisher, except with the Sovereign model option. With that option, no call data entrusted to a foreign third party.
Data in France, under French lawExposure of the public's data, hosted and minimised in France to the Cloud Act and FISA 702 is reduced by design; location alone does not guarantee immunity.
The public officer keeps the leadThe caller is told they are speaking to an AI; complex requests are transferred to a human officer.
Human oversight & traceabilitySwitchboard & overflow: monitoring, updates and call logging.
Frequently asked questions
Your questions, our answers
Is the caller really speaking to a synthesised voice?
Yes, and they are told at the start of the call, as the AI Act requires. Complex or sensitive requests are transferred to a human officer: the AI agent assists reception, it never substitutes for the public officer on the subjects that need one.
Can we keep the existing number?
Yes: the agent connects to your telephony without changing your numbers. We adapt the integration to your phone system and your departments, without imposing a migration.
Does it work outside opening hours?
Yes, it can provide a first level of reception 24/7 — opening hours, procedures, contact details — and schedule call-backs and appointments for when the departments reopen, which strengthens continuity and equal access to public service.
Is the public's data protected?
Yes. Contact details and the content of requests are personal data: our agents run locally within the authority or are hosted in France, with the deployment objective of processing and access operated within the European Union and an architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity. GDPR & AI Act: governed deployment.
Can the agent really route to the right department?
Yes. From your organisation chart and your knowledge base, it qualifies the request and directs it to the competent department — civil registry, planning, social — or transfers directly to an officer. Every call is recorded for follow-up.
Does the agent state that it is an artificial intelligence?
Yes, from the very first interaction, and this is not a configuration option: since 2 August 2026, Article 50(1) of the European AI Regulation requires that any person interacting with an AI system be informed, unless this is obvious. The announcement is built into the greeting, in the other party’s language, and they can ask for a human at any time.
How long does it take to deploy the agent?
A few weeks as a rule, after a 30-minute meeting with our sales team that identifies the most useful use case, then a phase of design, integration with your telephony and testing before going live and training your front-desk officers.
Which tools can users use to reach the agent?
The ones they already have. The agent answers on WhatsApp Business, the website chat, email and VoIP telephony: users have no account to create and no application to install. This is a lever for access to the service — WhatsApp and the telephone reach people an online form never does, which reduces the non-take-up of rights and serves equal access. Internally, your public-sector staff talk to the agent from Microsoft Teams, Slack or their email, without switching tools. Oversight runs from a web dashboard. These connectors rely on open standards, including the MCP protocol; they are included in every plan, at no extra cost, within the number of connections set out in your agent's quote. Only the fees charged by the platforms themselves — WhatsApp Business bills per conversation, and the gateway bills the text messages sent — are passed on at actual cost, with no margin, outside the subscription.
Can the agent notify users by text message?
Yes, as an option — and it is the channel that reaches the people the others never do. A text message arrives on an ordinary phone: no email address, no account, no app, no data plan and no smartphone. Sending the chosen slot and the list of documents to bring by text message, which saves a wasted trip means fewer entitlements going unclaimed and more equal access to the service. It is an outbound notification channel, not a conversation channel: users do not write to the agent there — they reach you on WhatsApp Business, the website chat, email or VoIP telephony. The message announces without detailing — never the reason, never the detail of the situation — and never contains a payment link, a login or a password: users reach the service the way they usually do. Delivery goes through a gateway established in the European Union; the messages sent are passed on at actual cost, with no margin, and the channel itself is an optional module, set out on the pricing page.
Related roles
Other roles in reception and relations with the public
Let's talk
Let us estimate the potential for your switchboard
30 minutes to identify the most useful use case — hosted in France, supervised, with no commitment.