AI Conversational Tools to Improve Citizens’ Experience by Making Government More Responsive!

When we interact with our government, we expect those experiences to meet a higher standard of quality, just like any other services. Unfortunately, the public sector often fails to meet those standards. Government agencies and civic bodies must find a way to improve their service and efficiency. Finding modern ways of engaging with the citizens, especially with the younger population and families, can be a struggle. Fortunately, AI-powered powered Conversational Tools can address many of the problems faced by citizens and their government. The hype surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and AI-powered Conversational agents has been huge and with a good reason. A Conversational AI tools are efficient, reliable and can provide invaluable time and money.

Current Problems Faced By Citizens In The Public Sector

Citizens want their everyday life to be easy with quick and easy interactions with government and public services. There is a prevalent notion that the majority of government services and process are very slow to respond. This is true to some extent. Government process is slow on the uptake, and even slower on delivery. This may be due to many reasons such as constrained budgets and resources or the lack of human skills required.  Although digitization in many areas has made government processes more efficient, there is still so much to be done regarding service delivery speed. Improving service delivery speed and data handling capabilities of governing bodies require more intelligent processing. Many governments across the world has started looking into harnessing technology to provide the best services to its citizens. Implementing AI-powered conversational tools in the public sector can enable faster and more accurate delivery of services. Such technology can provide better service to their citizens by automating certain tasks.

Meet Conversational AI Chatbots

AI Conversational tools are a set of technologies that enable computers to simulate conversations. In other words, it allows humans to interact with computers by using natural language. It can capture context and provide intelligent and correct responses. A conversational tools uses machine learning, NLP and NLU to understand even the most complex queries made by users. All a user has to do is to type in their query and Conversational AI will reply with an accurate response. A good AI Conversational tools could easily identify user’s intent in real-time and provides faster resolution without any delay. It can create personalized experiences and interactions with large numbers of individual customers. The advantage of a conversational AI is that it can automate some of the tasks and replace human labor or offload a significant amount of work from them.

How Conversational AI transform Government process.

In many service-oriented sectors, Chatbots are becoming the default customer support solution since they can function round the clock and process service requests in huge numbers. The same technology can help governments to be better service providers to their citizens. AI can make interactions between governing bodies and citizens more convenient by automating many services. It enables government departments and civic bodies to deliver services quickly at significantly lower costs. Conversational AI platforms such as chatbots, virtual assistants and messaging-based applications can start new service delivery channels for the government.

AI Conversational tools can improve the accessibility and efficiency of government services. They are an inexpensive way to cater to any number of queries and complaints from citizens. For citizens, it provides easier navigation through a complicated public data. Citizens can enjoy instant answers to questions about public services or register complaints and get it resolved quickly. The speed with which it responds to queries and complaints, as well as their availability even on public holidays and outside of office hours, helps government process to be more efficient. It also helps the users to easily perform many tasks such as filing of taxes, license renewal, lodging complaints, and giving feedback to local authorities with ease. The technology can automate processes such as generating bills and processing payments, answering citizen queries, routing complaints to the concerned authorities, and issuing and renewing documents that do not require a high-level of authorization.

Apart from complaint registration and data access, there are other ways Conversational AI tools can be beneficial.  The technology can fast-track form filling. Citizens no longer need to go through confusing forms and additional paperwork. Instead, a Conversational AI Tool can ask relevant questions to the user and fill the form on their behalf. This also liberates government employees from spending endless hours on repetitive work. They can focus their attention on delivering a personalized and high-level service experience.

What Makes Conversational AI The Best Helpers?

Conversational AI tools are the ideal solution for public-facing entities like a government. Here is why.

• They are inexpensive: Building and maintaining an AI Conversational Tool to handle thousands of customer requests is cheaper than hiring a team of government employees. Governments can save both manpower and money by implementing an AI Conversational Tool.

• Works 24X7X365 Days: Unlike human agents, it can work round-the-clock all year, even on holidays.

• They work faster: AI Conversational tools can reduce citizen wait time and can enhance the experience. Instead of keeping customers on hold, they can handle simple customer requests immediately.

• Ease of use: Citizens can talk/chat with an AI Conversational Tool in their natural language. Users don’t need special skills or training to interact with the bot.

Use cases of Conversational AI in Government Sector

#1 Easy Access to Up-To-Date Information and Events

The civil service provider to every citizen is their government. From issuing Passports to ID Cards the government does it all.  However, a citizen would have to visit different websites or government offices to access different kinds of information. This makes it very difficult to avail of any of the services or benefits.  An Intelligent AI Conversational tool can act like a receptionist who can answer or guide citizens to the right information based on their query. A chatbot can easily redirect its citizens to the right place and brings all information into one chat window that they can access any time. It can serve as a reliable contact point for information.

#2 Citizen Feedback

A government need feedback from its citizens to know how they are doing and to determine what they need to improve. However, government agencies and civic bodies find it very difficult to collect feedback from the people. They need a lot of manpower and resources to do this job. Even then, they can collect feedback from only a small percentage of the population. An AI-powered conversational tools can make the entire experience very human and accessible to the citizen. It can provide an easy way to engage users to collect feedback, both qualitative and quantitative. By providing smart back-end integrations, AI conversational tools can automatically route the feedback to the right departments within the government for quick problem resolution. Such a system helps government bodies stay up-to-date with the issues and concerns of their citizens, and take requisite measures to improve their experience.

#3 Easy Complaint resolution

Any Services that cater to a large user base requires an efficient and effective complaint resolution system. A government body is no exception. Citizens are bound to run into issues such as lost records, incorrectly filed details or other problems. Such situations cannot be avoided in entirety.  Complaint resolution by the government is a slow process and an intelligent conversational tool can change that. A good conversational tool can pull out relevant records, and file detailed complaints or support requests through the chat window. Simpler requests can be completely automated and processed by the chatbot while complex request can be routed to the relevant department for further resolution.

#4 Creating Awareness About Regulations, Laws and New Schemes

Many citizens are unaware about the latest legislation, benefits and assistance that they are entitled to. This is because many people avoid reading lengthy government documents about such public service schemes. With the emergence of Conversational tool, the government can create awareness about legislation and public service schemes to every user.  The conversational tool can help citizens stay updated on the details of new and existing laws, and administrative and welfare schemes that apply to them. It helps to create transparency between government and its citizens.

Conversational AI can enable governments to make their services accessible, transparent and efficient. It helps citizens with their queries. Implementing AI Conversational tools in the public sector make people’s lives much easier, while enabling government employees to focus on more complex social and cultural issues. The use of Conversational AI tools in the public sector can not only enhance the day-to-day functioning of governing bodies but can also save a lot of time, money and human resources for the government. Conversational AI tools are one of the best ways for a government to connect with its citizens.