by Oleksandr Kolesnyk, CEO, Medirent
Medirent has been participating in the European Social Services Conference (ESSC) for three consecutive years. It is a great honour for us to share our experience with leading experts and peers from across countries. With over 30 years of developing solutions for the social sector in Ukraine, we have gained a unique understanding of how to design services that are effective, accessible, and truly user centred.
This year, we invite you to visit our booth in Valletta to discuss approaches to building proactive services.
The world of social services is evolving faster than ever. A growing number of requests, increasing complexity of individual cases, and limited resources are pushing public institutions to seek new service delivery models. At the same time, users expect fast, convenient, and personalised services—available without queues or unnecessary procedures.
In many countries, the response to these challenges has been the adoption of artificial intelligence and voice technologies in contact centres and digital services. This enables the automation of routine inquiries, reduces the workload on operators, and improves service accessibility. However, in practice, such automation often remains reactive: systems respond only after a user reaches out and do not fully take into account the user’s context.
A new approach is now emerging—a proactive service model, where interaction begins not with a question, but with an understanding of the user’s situation. This represents a shift from handling requests to providing intelligent support.
We are developing solutions that enable systems to anticipate user needs and offer relevant actions even before a request is made.
One of the key directions is AI-powered digital front offices that integrate contact centres, service front offices, and user portals into a single ecosystem. The defining feature of this approach is its proactive nature: instead of merely reacting to inquiries, the system identifies the user, analyses their context, and anticipates the reason for contact before it is even expressed.
For example, instead of the standard “How can I help you?”, a user might hear:
“I see that you recently submitted an application. Would you like to check its status or make changes?”
The system can recognise the user—for instance, via a phone number or an authenticated digital channel—retrieve their profile, interaction history, and previous applications, generate the most likely interaction scenarios, and suggest relevant actions, including currently available services.
In this way, the model shifts from call handling to intelligent user guidance. The system:
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understands who is reaching out;
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analyses context and likely intent;
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helps resolve the issue faster than the user can formulate it.
This approach enhances service inclusivity and ensures more equitable access to social services for diverse user groups, including those with varying levels of digital literacy or those who prefer simpler interaction channels, such as voice.
Additionally, security remains a critical aspect. Proactive services rely on personal data, making robust user identification, secure communication channels, and strict access control essential.
The proactive model opens up new opportunities to create more efficient, accessible, and user-centred services that can adapt to the complex and dynamic needs of society.