The council that answers residents in seconds
Amelia runs resident services for the council in Edinburgh.
Listen to the story:
The challenge
Her contact centre takes three thousand calls a week. Most ask the same three things: what are these roadworks on my street, when are my bins collected, where is the nearest recycling centre. Callers wait twenty minutes for a ten second answer.
How the flow works
With xMap Flows, Amelia built Osprey. Osprey is an AI employee: a flow of 6 blocks.
When a resident writes on the council website,
Chat on the council site (Chat)
Osprey works out what they need,
Answer the resident (AI agent)
looks up roadworks on their street,
Roadworks near them (Traffic incidents)
checks their bin day,
Bin days by street (My data)
finds the nearest recycling centre,
Nearest recycling centre (Nearby places)
and answers in plain words, right away.
Answer in the chat (Reply)
What it solves
- Three thousand calls: solved by My data and AI agent
- Twenty-minute waits: solved by AI agent and Reply
- The same three questions: solved by Traffic incidents and Nearby places
The result
In its first month, Osprey answered eleven thousand questions, day and night. Calls dropped by a third, and the waiting time fell to four minutes for the people who really need a person.
Amelia’s team still answers residents. Just the ones who need a human.
An illustrative scenario: the figures are modelled to show what the flow produces, not a customer's results.
The flow, block by block
- 1
Chat on the council site
Starts the flow when someone writes in its chat: the chat window in the editor, or a chat page you can share or put on your website.
- 2
Answer the resident
An AI agent: for each incoming message it thinks, uses the blocks you link to its Tools port (data, xMap AI, lookups, your tables, other flows, apps), remembers the conversation and writes an answer in {{reply}}.
- 3
Roadworks near them
Road closures, roadworks and other incidents on online maps right now, with where they are.
- 4
Bin days by street
Brings in a table you uploaded or a list you saved on the My data page: your stores, customers, target accounts or sites.
- 5
Nearest recycling centre
Places around a point from xMap’s own places database (300M+ places, refreshed every month): pick the types of place (more than 5,000, such as Restaurant, Cafe, Pharmacy, Hospital or Gas station, or a whole group of them) and how far to look.
- 6
Answer in the chat
Answers whoever started the flow, on the same channel: the app or system that called its Webhook / API gets the answer back, and a message from Slack, WhatsApp, Telegram, Teams, SMS, Outlook or Discord gets a reply in the same chat, through the account of the block that received it.
Templates to build it
Ready-made flows with the same blocks. Open one, change the city and the kind of place, and run it.
- Road and weather chat for my driversA chat for drivers: closures, roadworks, the weather and the nearest fuel or truck stop where they are going.
- Chat about places near anyoneA chat for your customers that finds places near anyone, live.
- Branch finder and menu chat for your websiteA chat on your website that finds the customer's nearest branch, live.
- Citizen services chat: nearest pharmacy or clinicA chat that finds residents the nearest open pharmacy, clinic or hospital.
- Admissions assistant for familiesAn admissions chat that finds the nearest campus to a family and describes the area.
- Legal intake assistant for my websiteAn intake assistant that sorts enquiries and names the nearest office.
Industries
Learn how it works
- AI agentAn AI that decides which tools to use to answer or complete a task.
- How to build a WhatsApp assistant that answers about placesCustomers ask on WhatsApp; an AI agent searches and replies.
- How to score candidate store sitesCompare sites on residents, competitors and neighbours, with an AI score and a reason.
- AI agents with tools and memoryAn agent that answers questions using your blocks as tools.
- Answer on WhatsApp, Telegram or SlackAn assistant that replies in the same chat.
- A chat page for your flowLet anyone talk to a flow on a page or on your website.
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Build this flow on your own city
Run a live search on the home page without an account, or let Ask xMap build the flow from one sentence.