Member for Barker Tony Pasin has welcomed the new digital assistants on the Department of Human Services’ website, which are answering simple questions and helping people complete their claims for family and student payments online so people don’t have to pick up the phone.Digital assistant ‘Sam’ is one component of the Government’s $1 billion investment in the Welfare Payment Infrastructure Transformation (WPIT) program. The department has also developed other assistants ‘Oliver’ and ‘Roxy’ to help recipients and staff.

The aim of the digital assistants is to reduce the number of errors in claims and occasions where people are asked to clarify or provide further information while their claim is being processed.

Since their launch this year, ‘Sam’ has had more than 135,000 conversations with families and students and ‘Oliver’ has handled 191,000 interactions with students.

In addition to recipient assistants, ‘Sam’ and ‘Oliver’, processing staff can use ‘Roxy’, who answers complex questions about Student, Carer and Age Pension claims accurately, saving staff from searching through legislation to locate the answer.

Mr Pasin said this initiative is another measure to help citizens interact with Centrelink more easily and conveniently.

“This initiative will help reduce call wait times by eliminating thousands of calls and combined with the 250 additional staff will help make it easier and simpler to interact with Centrelink,” Mr Pasin said.

 

CONTACT: Charlotte Edmunds 8531 2466