Blog: Staffordshire Police welcomes Bobbi into public contact

People turn to the police with all kinds of questions, from how to report an incident to what to do about lost property. Many simply need a straightforward answer, and having more ways to find one can make all the difference.

Staffordshire Police is now giving people another way to get that help with the launch of Bobbi, an AI agent powered by Agentforce, available through its Single Online Home 24 hours a day.

Serving more than one million people across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, the force hopes Bobbi will help more people find the answers they need online, reducing avoidable demand on its contact teams and giving them more time for conversations that need a person.

More answers, around the clock

Bobbi draws on 89 articles reviewed and approved by Staffordshire Police, covering common enquiries including lost property, crime prevention, sharing information and reporting an incident.

With that force-approved knowledge behind it, Bobbi has a clear role in handling appropriate non-emergency enquiries, while a trained member of staff can step in whenever further assistance is needed. What someone has already shared moves with the conversation, so they don’t have to start again.

Working within the knowledge and controls set by Staffordshire Police, Bobbi sits alongside the force’s existing contact channels. The principle is simple: use AI where it can genuinely help, while keeping people at the heart of conversations that need experience, empathy or judgement.

"This is an exciting development for the force. It is hoped that the investment in this technology will continue to help us to respond more quickly to everyone who contacts us with a non-emergency query. The virtual assistant is not replacing human call handlers but offers an additional service to the public. The introduction of Bobbi is part of our ongoing investment in our contact centre to continue to improve our response times and make sure everyone who contacts us gets a timely and appropriate response." - Chief Superintendent Matt Morgan, Head of Contact Centre - Staffordshire Police

Built on what policing has already learned

Staffordshire Police joins a growing group of forces using Bobbi, including Thames Valley Police and Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary, South Yorkshire Police, Humberside Police, Merseyside Police, Essex Police and Lancashire Constabulary.

Every new deployment adds to a growing body of experience around how AI can support public contact in policing. Rather than starting from scratch, forces can build on what’s already been learned around knowledge, testing, governance and handover, then shape Bobbi around their own communities.

Across existing deployments, Bobbi is handling around 500 conversations a day, with around 76% resolved digitally.

Both Salesforce and Infomentum have worked closely alongside participating forces to help turn that shared learning into services shaped around the needs of each force and the people it serves.

"It was an exciting privilege working with the Staffordshire Police team on the Bobbi virtual assistant rollout over the past 9 months. Their force contact team deeply cares about the service they provide to the public. Thanks to everyone's hard work, we’ve created another innovative, accessible way to help respond quickly to non-emergency queries.” - Rachel Shepherd, Senior Project Manager - Infomentum

Learning from every conversation

Launch is just the beginning for Staffordshire Police. As more people use Bobbi, the team can see what they’re asking, where online guidance could be stronger and where someone still needs a different kind of help.

Bobbi is also part of a bigger step forward for Staffordshire Police, with Victim Journey and a new victim portal now live too. Together, they give victims proactive case updates and a secure online space to access information about their case, while Bobbi supports a broader range of everyday enquiries.

Each provides a different route to support, with the same aim of making it easier for the public to get what they need at the right time.

Bobbi handles what it can. People step in when they should.

If you'd like to learn more about how Bobbi the knowledge agent could work for your organisation, reach out to one of our agentic experts.