Eligibility pre-screening
Walk callers through household size, income and utility questions before they ever reach an intake worker.
LIHEAP · Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
Answer Every Energy Assistance Call
LIHEAP season brings more calls than any team can staff for. CivicReach answers them all, pre-screens callers and sends shutoffs straight to your staff.
Also known asLIHEAPLow Income Home Energy Assistance ProgramEAP (Minnesota and others)HEAP (New York, Ohio)LEAP (Colorado)CEAP (Texas)WHEAP (Wisconsin)HEAT (Utah)Crisis and shutoff assistanceUtility, heating and cooling assistance
Whether your state calls it LIHEAP, EAP, HEAP, LEAP or CEAP, the pattern is the same: when the weather turns or the application window opens, the phones light up. Most callers ask the same handful of questions: am I eligible, what do I bring, where is my application. A few calls are true emergencies.
CivicReach answers every one of those calls in English and Spanish, around the clock. It explains your program's rules, walks callers through the documents they need, checks application status and hands disconnects and shutoffs to a person right away.
Why the phones get hard
- Call volume spikes the day applications open and again with the first cold snap or heat wave
- Incomplete applications and missing documents lead to denials and rework
- Shutoff and disconnect emergencies get stuck in the same queue as routine status checks
- Every state, and often every agency, runs the program with different rules and names
What CivicReach does for LIHEAP
Document checklists
Tell each caller exactly what to bring or upload, so applications arrive complete and denials go down.
Crisis triage
Flag disconnect notices and shutoffs right away and route them to a live person, so emergencies never wait behind routine calls.
Status and appointment calls
Answer "where's my application?" and book or confirm intake appointments, with SMS reminders if you want them.
""We just got the calls that we really needed to talk to. So they were disconnects, they were shut offs. They were some folks that needed some additional help. And those are the calls that we want to take live. So, it was really nice. And staff said it was a nice break!"
Case study
Results from agencies like yours
Who runs LIHEAP
Built for every kind of provider
Depending on your state, LIHEAP might be run by a community action agency, a county or a state office. We work with all of them.
Community Action AgenciesThe most common local provider of LIHEAP intake.Cities & CountiesCounty social service departments administer it in many states.State AgenciesState LIHEAP offices set the rules and often run statewide lines.Area Agencies on AgingIn some states, AAAs take energy assistance applications from older adults.
LIHEAP questions
Our state doesn't call it LIHEAP. Will CivicReach work for us?
Yes. LIHEAP is the federal funding stream; states run it under their own names and rules. The AI is trained on your program's actual name, eligibility criteria, documents and deadlines, not a generic federal script.
What happens when someone calls with a shutoff notice?
Crisis calls are identified in the conversation and routed to your staff right away, following the escalation rules you set. Routine questions stay with the AI, so your team has time for the emergencies.
Can it handle the seasonal surge?
Yes. There's no hold queue: every call is answered right away, at any volume, any time of day. That includes the first morning applications open.
Run more than one program? See all the programs we support.
Your community is waiting.
Let's talk about what CivicReach can do for your agency. Whether you're ready for a pilot or just exploring — we'd love to learn about your work.