Customer Story – Chesterfield County
How Chesterfield County Cut Website Complaints and Delivered Faster Answers with AI Search
Problem
Chesterfield County recognized that residents were searching for critical information on its website, but inconsistent results and limited insight into user behavior made it difficult for them to get answers quickly.
Needs
The county needed a smarter search experience that delivered accurate results, gave administrators control over content visibility, and helped identify content gaps to improve the website.
Solution
With Cludo, Chesterfield County transformed its site search, cutting the number of clicks to find information from seven to two, resolving frequent complaints, and enabling residents to get faster, more accurate answers.
The Challenge: One Website, 60 Independent Businesses
Chesterfield County, located in central Virginia, provides full local government services through a wide range of departments, elected offices, and digital systems. As Chris Coleman, eGovernment Services Manager, explains, the county effectively operates as “60 independent businesses,” each managing its own technologies and processes.
For constituents, this complexity showed up most clearly on the website — especially within their search.
“We would get complaints all the time, why isn’t this in search? Why is it on the second page?”
Chris Coleman, eGovernment Services Manager at Chesterfield County
The frustration wasn’t just external. Internally, the web team lacked the tools to fix the problem. What seemed like a small issue quickly became a persistent one — complaints escalated through phone calls to elected officials and county administration due to:
- No control over search relevance or rankings
- No ability to integrate external systems
- A separate, manually managed chatbot that was difficult to maintain
“It became a pattern of frustration on the old website,” Coleman says. “You’d think there’d be bigger things to worry about than site search, but it was a real issue.”
The Solution: Control, Integration, and AI, All in One Place
As Chesterfield prepared for broader website modernization, Coleman knew search had to be part of the solution. After meeting Cludo at a conference and evaluating other options, the choice became clear.
Chesterfield County went live with Cludo in 2024, implementing:
- Intelligent site search
- AI Summary, replacing a legacy Q&A chatbot
- Custom banners and synonyms for real-time guidance
- API-based integrations across county systems
For Brian Bolanos, eGovernment Services Analyst, the AI component was especially compelling.
“We used to have a Q&A chatbot on our old website,” Bolanos explains. “It was manually managed and very difficult to maintain. We knew that replacing it with a smarter solution was a priority .”
As AI-powered search experiences became more common – especially in widely used tools like Google – the decision solidified.
Results at a Glance
Since implementing Cludo, Chesterfield County has seen measurable improvements across engagement, efficiency, and satisfaction:
- Zero complaints about site search (down from constant constituent feedback)
- 300,000+ AI summaries generated in the first year
- 3 million+ searches served to constituents
- Clicks reduced from 5–7 down to 2–3 (often zero with AI summaries)
“Before Cludo, we received many complaints internally and externally,” Bolanos says. “Since implementation , we really haven’t received any.”
Coleman puts it even more simply: “Us not hearing anything is a success story in itself.”
Real-World Impact: The Snow Plow Moment
The value of Cludo became especially clear during winter storms in early 2026. In Virginia, counties don’t plow roads, the state does. But when residents can’t leave their neighborhood, they don’t care which agency is responsible. “They just assume it’s the county,” Coleman explains.
On the old website, hundreds of searches for “snow plow” led nowhere useful. The team could see confusion in the data — but had no way to intervene. Now, when someone searches for snow plows or road conditions, a custom Cludo banner immediately directs them to the correct state resource.
“We’re totally fine sending people to a different website,” Coleman says. “If we’re getting them to the right place faster, that’s a win.”
Search as Infrastructure: Unifying Disconnected Systems
One of Cludo’s biggest strengths for Chesterfield County has been its ability to connect data across platforms using APIs.
The county now surfaces search results from:
- Parks and Recreation activity systems
- County code databases
- Custom planning and zoning applications
- Department-specific platforms
“Our goal is to make all of this feel like one experience,” Coleman says. “We don’t want constituents to know they’re jumping between systems — it should all happen in one place.”
Analytics That Shape Content Strategy
The Cludo analytics dashboard has become a critical tool for the eGovernment Services team.
“We’re very analytics-focused,” Bolanos says. “We pull in data and then we act on it.”
By analyzing real search behavior, the team can:
• Identify gaps in content
• Improve discoverability for high-demand services
• Adapt to changing search patterns
One notable shift: longer, more conversational queries.
“We’re seeing more long-tail searches than ever before,” Bolanos explains. “Cludo gives us visibility into that, so we can adapt our content to match how users are actually searching.”
A Different Definition of Success
For Chesterfield County, fewer clicks—not more—signal success.
“E-commerce sites want traffic and clicks,” Coleman says. “For us, success means solving the problem as quickly as possible.
”Before Cludo, finding an answer could take five to seven clicks for users. Now, it often takes two or less, sometimes none at all. Sometimes the AI summary gives you the phone number or hours you need,” Coleman explains. “When we see a non-conversion from search, that’s actually a success story for us.”
Leading Digital Governance with Responsible AI
Chesterfield County embraced AI but with clear guardrails.
“We’re not ignoring the fact that humans need to be involved,” Coleman says. “AI needs to be safe, controlled, and intentional. That was the first big AI proof point we could show the county, we were already doing it and doing it responsibly.”
With Cludo, AI summaries are generated only from approved county content and API-connected systems — never external or unverified sources.
That approach has paid off. Chesterfield County was named a first-place Digital Counties Survey winner in both 2024 and 2025, with its AI-powered constituent experience cited as a key differentiator.
“We’ve been able to deliver on what we promised – and then some. With Cludo, it’s been a really strong partnership.”
Chris Coleman, eGovernment Services Manager at Chesterfield County