Chatbots are not designed exclusively for businesses. They can also be used by public services and local authorities. Over the past few years, these have been using a wide range of technological tools to achieve their various objectives and become modern, attractive cities. What’s more, the use of chatbots by a town hall or local authority remains much the same as that of corporations. That is, if we consider a citizen or taxpayer as a customer or someone who spends money to take advantage of a service.
While some cities, town halls and local authorities use classic chatbots, others rely on more customized tools designed to meet specific needs. With the right settings, a chatbot can be a real asset for a town hall and its public, especially when it comes to administrative procedures.
Greater customer satisfaction
In principle, in a city, when a citizen notices a defect, he or she must inform the mayor’s office so that the latter can find a solution. If this is not done on time, problems are not solved on time, leading to numerous complications for our fellow citizens.
Customized effectively and appropriately, chatbots can be used to energize a city or optimize the various services offered by the town hall. For example, chatbots can be designed to provide real-time information on damage to garbage cans, road deformations or accidents.
In particular, these bots enable users to report problems that arise in their daily lives. This could involve the replacement of public objects or repairs following natural damage. That’s why some towns, such as Massy, offer a Messenger chatbot with which residents can report all kinds of malfunctions, such as the absence of garbage collection, for example.
Similarly, in the city of North Charleston, South Carolina, a chatbot enables citizens to claim repairs for damage of any kind. Note that 6 months after deploying this solution, the number of garbage can repairs or replacements increased by around 114%.
At the same time, the number of public interventions to repair traffic lights and street lamps in the city has also doubled. This clearly demonstrates the usefulness and effectiveness of such a system.
Simplified access to public information
Take the example of question-and-answer chatbots, which are making customer service more efficient for many companies. They enable the public to obtain information more quickly and easily.
One of the most important pieces of information any town hall should provide is the town’s cultural agenda. For one reason or another, the schedule data may be modified during the course of a year, following the programming of a new event or a schedule change.
With digitalization, instead of approaching city employees to find out about new dates, citizens can access them directly via chatbot. So anyone can check the latest information (location, date, time and rates) at any time, from a simple smartphone or computer.
What’s more, a virtual assistant can communicate details about the various elections, whether departmental or regional. In 2017, the city of Marseille and its partners set up a chatbot designed to answer questions relating to the presidential elections. This tool was able to indicate voting locations, necessary documents, polling station times. In the end, the data proved that this chatbot accessible from Messenger and the town hall’s Facebook page responded to over 470,000 voters.
Considerable time savings
One of the advantages of a chatbot for a town hall is the time it saves the public. Conversational bots provide a response rate of around 80% on first contact. As a result, users are quickly satisfied with their concerns.
What’s more, unlike helpdesks or call centers, chatbots are available 24 hours a day. Whatever the day, citizens can submit their problems and get answers. What’s more, with chatbots, city users no longer have to go to the office every time they need help. This saves them time, while naturally improving their level of satisfaction.
Time savings also apply to town hall employees. With chatbots, recurring requests are reduced and managed autonomously by the bots. As a result, civil servants and local authority employees can devote more time to different tasks or larger-scale projects. With the chatbot, everyone – town hall employees and citizens alike – saves a considerable amount of time.
How do you go about integrating the chatbot into your town hall?
You need to bear in mind that the digitalization of your town hall through the implementation of a chatbot is aimed at facilitating exchanges between constituents and administration. As such, chatbots generally used in local authorities or town halls differ from those intended for a company, e-commerce site, NGO or school. The bot must be able to answer questions related to city operations.
If you’re looking for a chatbot that can meet your local council’s requirements, discover Botnation‘s bots. Botnation allows you to design virtually any type of chatbot. You can customize your software to suit your working system. Equipped with artificial intelligence, Botnation’s bots guarantee real performance and great personalization.
With Botnation’s interface, you don’t need to code before creating your own chatbot. With no knowledge of programming or web development, you can set up an automatic, efficient and secure virtual assistance service. Bots creation experts are on hand to guide you through the entire design process.
Your bots can easily connect to all types of CRM and API. Messenger, WhatsApp, app, website…., you can link your town hall chatbot to virtually all your communication tools and online services.
Make your town hall a modern one, always ready to listen to your fellow citizens, by setting up a chatbot on your various online communication tools.
