Government Chatbots: 5 Ways Chatbots Can Personalize Public Services

Like any new development with a phenomenal growth rate, AI bots tend to attract accolades and apprehensions in equal measure. Government chatbots are no exception, invoking mixed reactions from people. On the one hand, they’re an inexpensive way to cater to any number of queries and complaints from citizens. The argument against talks about how AI bots can’t quite replace the human element.

To reconcile these two arguments, it is important to distinguish between tasks that humans are more suited to, and tasks that AI bots can perform with much more efficiency. This article looks at the latter, in the context of public services rendered by government organizations. The following are some ways in which chatbots can personalize public services, thus allowing government bodies to offer a better experience for citizens.

1. Chatbots Give Citizens an Accessible, Up-To-Date Calendar of Events

Chatbots can serve as a reliable contact point for information that your citizens seek on a regular basis. Notifications about upcoming local events, activities, and holidays make up a significant percentage of this information. If AI bots were out of the picture, a citizen would visit different websites and subscribe to different online services for different kinds of information. The existence of government chatbots brings all of this information into one chat window that they can open up at any time.

In addition to this, the mode of dispensing information about local activities and events also becomes more interactive using conversational AI. Instead of visiting a link and scouting through hundreds of calendar entries, a person can just ask the government chatbot about the next long weekend, or respond to the chatbot’s invitation to check out the latest event being organized near them.

2. Chatbot Is a Free, 24/7 City Guide

Government chatbots can make cities more tourist-friendly, guiding visitors to local attractions and helping them plan their itineraries. Depending on the level of detail used during the government chatbot development, they can offer additional advice including map directions, public transit routes, and so on.

These functionalities need not be as comprehensive as those offered by a tour booking agency website, but they can certainly cater to the basic questions that tourists visiting a particular city tend to have. Of course, if properly integrated with other components of the chat script, these functionalities can assist local commuters as well.

3. Chatbots Simplify Public Services and Civic Duties

Government chatbots can assist citizens with a variety of tedious tasks, especially those that involve filling out forms and sending in detailed applications. With the live chat window present on every page of the government body website, citizens can quickly get answers or clarifications about a government scheme or administrative formality. Actions such as renewal of driving licenses, applications for pensions or other relief packages, and filing and payment of taxes, can be initiated online via live chat, thus taking less time and requiring less manpower on the part of the government bodies involved.

4. Government Chatbots Can Dispense Healthcare Information

Government bodies can leverage chatbots for dispensing accurate and up-to-date information about medical aid schemes, city hospitals, and emergency healthcare protocols. Citizens can get directions to the nearest hospital in case of an emergency, find out about hospitals, medical centers and clinics that offer healthcare services at subsidized rates, and familiarize themselves with the latest healthcare schemes launched by the government. The conversational format of the interaction breaks this information down to smaller chunks, helping citizens understand and process it correctly.

5. Chatbots Can Generate Awareness About Regulations and Legislation

The average citizen avoids reading lengthy government documents about legislations and public service schemes. With the emergence of chatbots for government agency websites, though, the information in these documents can be converted into a simple Q&A format, and dispensed to citizens via live chat. Simple, conversational language and immediate responses to doubts or queries can help citizens stay updated on the details of new and existing laws, and administrative and welfare schemes that apply to them.

Essentially, online chatbots can help government agencies create a more approachable image in the eyes of their citizens, and help citizens avail of the benefits and assistance that they are entitled to. Over time, this can equate to significant improvements in governance and administration.