The resource center answers questions from businesses and individuals — from those on sales and use tax registration to personal income tax, veteran’s exemptions and tax types, according to an emailed statement. The OTC platform, which is also in place at the Oklahoma Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) service desk, is built in Amazon Web Services (AWS) Connect.
“These tools help agencies respond more quickly, reduce hold times and provide more consistent and reliable support. By modernizing how services are delivered, agencies can better meet citizens’ expectations while also using resources more efficiently," OMES Customer Success Director Amy Max said in a statement.
In keeping with the state’s strategic priority of “driving efficiency across government,” the July 1 call center launch introduced a range of features: interactive voice response (IVR) for identity verification, AI-generated call summaries, SMS messaging, permit lookup, callback scheduling, multilingual voice mail and post-call surveys. ScaleCapacity led the 11-month implementation, according to an emailed statement, replacing the existing NICE inContact system.
AWS Connect is a cloud-based contact center platform that state agencies are using in a variety of ways. These include pre-verifying caller identity using IVR, auto-generating call summaries with AI, routing calls correctly, offering multilingual voicemail and self-service menus, sending text messages that link callers to information or payment portals, integrating ticketing or knowledge bases for agent workflows, and launching post-call surveys.
Oklahoma’s rollout may be the most recent example of the cloud technology in action, but the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) modernization made use of it in enhancing call center operations, too. The MVD deployed AWS Connect around 2022 with vendor Kyndryl. Brian Shell, senior partner for the company, said the call center was just one piece of the puzzle — and moving it from a legacy platform simplified processes, improved call handling and enabled integrations with other cloud systems. He described it as nearly an out-of-the-box experience.
“We’ve been through a couple call center platforms over 10 or 15 years, and this one was different,” he said. “The move ... was so fast and so smooth, it really dwarfed our previous implementations. With a small team, we made the change quickly, and almost immediately, we saw improvements in metrics and the caller experience.”
“It’s nice to have a technology project go smoothly, but what [residents] care about is the experience they get when they’re using the service,” Shell said. “Moving between the queues smoothly and quickly, making sure that we had good visibility and never having anyone in a queue that wasn’t covered. The time to answer went down.”
Other states that have pursued large-scale call center modernizations include California and New Jersey. The latter’s Office of Innovation has documented best practices for implementing a new call center — or in this case, 12. In the end, solving customer problems and getting them to the right place in the queue is key.
“You have so many points of engagement between state government and the citizen, and one of the biggest ones is [the] call center,” Shell said. “I mean, it’s 2025, and people still get on the phone and call.”
