“I'm sorry, that's actually handled by another agency.”
How many times do you or someone on your team answer this question? We can bet it’s at least once, if not multiple times a day or even hour.
When a resident has a question—about a pothole, a building permit, or a vaccination clinic—they just want answers. What they don’t want is to be bounced between departments, told to call another agency, or left digging through outdated web pages. But in city-county relationships, this is the norm, not the exception.
One of Polimorphic’s county customers receives daily chatbot questions about trash pickup, streetlights, and water billing—none of which are county services. They’re managed by individual cities within the county. Still, the questions keep coming, and the county team used to spend time responding and redirecting, even though the answers technically aren’t their responsibility.
It’s not because residents aren’t paying attention. It’s because the structure of local government is often invisible to the people it serves. Most residents don’t understand the difference between what the county does and what their city handles—and frankly, they shouldn’t have to.
When staff receive a misdirected question, they have to stop what they’re doing, look up the correct jurisdiction, and manually send the resident to the right place. That can take 10–15 minutes per call. Multiply that by a handful of requests a day, and suddenly a customer service team is spending hours every week playing middleman.
This is more than just an inconvenience—it’s a real resource drain. For teams already stretched thin, spending time on work that shouldn’t be theirs adds pressure and limits their ability to respond to the questions that do belong to them.
From a resident’s perspective, this back-and-forth is frustrating. They don’t care who runs what; they just want the answer. Every time they’re told to “call someone else,” trust erodes. And in an age when most people are used to 24/7, immediate customer service, local governments can’t afford to feel like the slow lane.
This is where AI can truly shine. With an AI-powered chatbot or phone line that connects knowledge across city and county boundaries, residents can ask questions anywhere—on the city’s website, the county’s portal, or via text or phone call—and get the right answer, no matter which agency is technically responsible.
At Polimorphic, we call this our Connected Community feature. If a resident visits a city’s site to ask about a vaccine clinic that’s run by the county? They get the county’s answer. No forwarding. No hunting. No delays. Just answers for residents.
This level of collaboration is what modern residents expect—and what governments can now deliver.
Even just two redirected calls avoided per day add up.
It adds up to more than a full workweek your staff gets back—time that can be spent solving real problems, innovating, or reducing your service backlog. And if you're saving three or four calls a day? You're talking hundreds of hours per year.
And it goes beyond just answering questions. AI can also improve how cities and counties work together on services like permitting, inspections, and compliance.
Take a building permit as an example. If a proposed project needs sign-off from both city planning and the county health department, AI can help automatically notify both teams, update statuses, and reduce the need for manual coordination. That means fewer dropped balls, less email tags, and a smoother experience for the residents and the agencies alike.
Counties and cities don’t need to merge operations to offer seamless service. They just need the right tools to share knowledge and work together. And Polimorphic’s Connected Communities through Chatbot and Voice can help.
AI front desk solutions—like the ones Polimorphic builds—make it possible for jurisdictions to stay distinct, while still delivering unified, responsive communication to residents.
Ultimately, residents simply want their concerns addressed, regardless of which department provides the solution.
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