Doug Petroshius On Why Local Governments Should Embrace Chatbots

The average local government entity (a city, county, township, school district, fire district, etc.) is faced with a daunting task: meeting citizen demand for high levels of customer service as with companies such as Amazon and being expected to stay current with every form of communication – email, text message, Facebook, Twitter, and others. Long time periods on the phone, in email correspondence, or searching a government website for answers is frustrating and can cause conflict in the community. After all, most people don’t have a choice with which local government to contact; they usually are reaching out to government because it is their last, or only, resort. Yet, despite these challenges, local governments don’t have the financial resources necessary to meet such increasing demands using conventional methods such as hiring more staff. However, there is a cutting-edge, cost-effective, 24/7 customer service solution which is available to local governments to tackle this challenge: artificial intelligence-enabled chatbots.

Streamline Customer Service

Chatbots are robot-operated software resources that allows local government to connect with its citizens. The chatbots being used today are not the dumb chatbots of old which required developers to program numerous possible answers to simple questions. Instead, these are learning robots. They operate through a series of algorithms and pre-programmed skills that let the software recognize citizens' inquiries and answer to them appropriately. So, for instance, if someone messages a city inquiring about when to put their garbage on the curb, the chatbot will be able to interpret this question and answer it with current information provided by city staff with a user-friendly interface. How does this help local government?

Well, according to the President of eAllianceGov, a local government chatbot platform developer, Doug Petroshius, chatbots help streamline customer service. In other words, they offer an improved way to interact with potential buyers that is almost completely immune to human error. After all, these are computer programs whose level of precision goes well above anything that can be achieved by humans.

Improved Accessibility

Many Peoria citizens have a low threshold for issues like untimely responses and delays. And rightly so. Given the fast-paced environment in which almost all professionals operate, having to deal with prolonged waiting periods is not something that people forgive. Well, when local governments have limited hours of operations for their departments, people may face situations where they cannot get their questions answered for days. In cases where chatbots are implemented, however, hours of operations are pretty much non-existent. Why? Because these robots do not have a set time when they are operational. Meaning, someone could get their questions answered in the middle of the night without any issues.

Further, the chatbots can integrate with citizen request management systems allowing the chatbot to consume a service request in the middle of the night, using a conversational dialog. Finally, chatbots are no longer just for websites. They can be developed to operate in Facebook Messenger, Twitter, email, text message, Slack, mobile apps, Alexa, and Google Assistant. This allows local governments to be more accessible to their residents, even exceeding expectations.

Excellent Cost-to-Benefit Ratio

Contrary to popular belief, the costs to implement chatbots are marginal. This is because there are hundreds of providers that one can choose from. So, since the competition is fierce, a lot of businesses that offer this service are forced to reduce prices in order to attract customers. Costs of the human workforce, on the other hand, are at an all-time high. For instance, a local government in Peoria is most likely going to face higher costs when hiring customer service representative than when paying for chatbots. The reason why is the fact that one must account for costs of training, benefits, pensions, and all other non-cash compensations. With chatbots, however, there is a single lump-sum installation fee followed by a fixed monthly charge or in some cases, a per-conversation rate structure.

Reputation

Ultimately, local governments that switch to chatbots are going to jump on the rapidly moving train of innovation. This is extremely important because, as Doug Petroshius reminds, it helps that local government elevate their reputation, especially with younger generations moving into their communities such as Millennials, who prefer text-based interactions. Mr. Petroshius also recommends local governments do their homework before signing on with a chatbot provider. He recommends engaging with a robust chatbot platform, one that is able to integrate with the variety of government software applications.

Many citizens nowadays become disheartened when they are forced to interact with government using antiquated methods such as the telephone, snail mail, or walk-ins. Fortunately, there is no better way to promote innovative strategies than to implement modern solutions like chatbots.