Challenge

The Small Business Administration (SBA) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) portal frequently receives numerous inquiries concerning basic helpdesk support, such as inactive accounts, password resets, solicitation details, and proposal submission issues. With the helpdesk support team handling over 100 requests each month, this creates scheduling and workload challenges for them to manage effectively.

Solution

In order to enhance the helpdesk team’s efficiency and alleviate workload management challenges, REI developed an AI model that comprehends user intentions based on historical questions and support scripts. This enables the automation of responses to some of the most basic, routine inquiries. REI leveraged the AWS SageMaker service to build, train, and deploy the model, which now automates the basic helpdesk support chatbot application.

Impact

In conclusion, the implemented solution automatically offers suggestions to helpdesk inquirers, assisting in the resolution of basic requests. This significantly reduces the number of helpdesk support tickets, enabling the team to focus on more complex issues and improving overall efficiency.