TOPICS: Chatbot for Government   Chatbot for Service    Building a chatbot   

Government chatbots: How bots are helping Government Services

Government services in several nations have witnessed a massive overhaul in these past couple of years. To a large extent, the transformation is on account of technological upgrades that have streamlined their workflow and improved their communication with citizens. The use of online government chatbots on websites is a characterizing example.

This article outlines three major ways in which chatbot development is shaping the modern image of government organizations and their services.

1. Government Chatbots reduce operational costs.

The conventional workflow at a typical government organization has primarily relied on manpower. Employees have been assigned varied roles and responsibilities, and citizens have directly or indirectly interacted with them to get work done. In this day and age, however, government organizations – like any other business – deal in much higher volumes and execute much more varied tasks. The number of registered users at a typical tax authority, for example, has now increased manifold. Not only that, tax regulations and paperwork have also grown more complex – so much so that manually processing them and keeping track of every tax payer’s records and filings is no longer realistic.

This is where government chatbots come into play. Building chatbots for their websites enables government bodies to process a dramatically higher number of customer requests, payments, and complaints, while incurring minimal expense. The costs of hiring human employees to handle a comparable number of interactions would be astronomical in comparison. Their wages, insurance and benefits would amount to a massive drain on the organization’s resources.

This brings us to the second most important benefit of building chatbots for government services.

2. Government Chatbots don’t have ‘human’ limitations.

When a chatbot is deployed on a government body website, it stays on-duty until taken down. The fact that government chatbots stay online and available 24/7 and all year round, essentially means that the government body using them remains operational on weekends, public holidays, and outside of business hours as well. Citizens can interact with these bots when they need information about a policy, regulation or upcoming event, get assistance with technical issues like password resets, and even file tickets for custom issues that will later require human intervention.

Online chatbots are also immune to fatigue and chances of human error. Unlike physical staff, these virtual employees can keep performing the same tasks over and over again, always yielding identical results, and maintaining the same speed and efficiency. They do not tire, or see fluctuations in productivity on a day-to-day basis. As such, they are ideally suited to tasks that are mostly repetitive in nature – which also happen to be the kind that government bodies deal with in large numbers.

3. Government Chatbots improve citizen engagement.

When government bodies create a government chatbot for their websites, they significantly improve citizens’ access to information and assistance. Laws, regulations, policies, and community-level activities, have so far been relegated to obscure webpages that receive minimal traffic. With government chatbot development, however, this information can easily be funneled to citizens. This keeps citizens more involved and engaged with their government.

Additionally, the fact that chatbots actually ‘converse’ with citizens, helps government bodies offer a more personalized user experience on their websites. This further contributes to increasing citizen engagement, which in turn encourages people to collaborate with their government, give their feedback, and eventually improve the quality of the public services they use on a daily basis.

Keep following our blog for more insights on chatbot development in the context of government services. We would also be happy to address your queries about building chatbots for your website; contact us right here.