Chatbots are almost in all the sectors and are proved useful in each one. All industries are benefited by the use of chatbots, and we already know that people love to interact with chatbots, they not only reply in seconds but also give accurate answers with the help of machine learning. Private sectors have swiftly adopted chatbots, while in public sectors the adoption rate is slower.

With the aggressive use of chatbots for business, businesses have started automation for customer support, services, etc. which have saved a lot of bucks so far. Use in E-commerce sector is maximum compared to other sectors. Chatbots are upto 90% beneficial to E-commerce industry than others. Other sectors that have benefited include insurance, healthcare, retail, hospitality, and many more. Chatbot market growth has increased rapidly since the last few years and is still growing at fast pace.

Chatbots are also implemented in the government sector for citizens’ quick access to public data and reporting complaints. Despite just complaint registration and data access, there are also many ways chatbots are beneficial, which I will be talking about later in the article.

Implementation of chatbots in various government agencies will totally transform the communication between citizens and government. Currently, there are citizen issues that are unaddressed in every country. If using chatbots, these “unaddressed” issues can be sorted then it will surely be a victory for chatbots.

Benefits to Citizens

Chatbot use varies depending on the function of a government body. Here are just some general benefits to citizens:

Citizens can get a quick access to public data.

They can submit complaint request online.

Form submission can be done through the bot.

Citizens can pay tax and bills online.

It will also help people save time.

People can get assistance in their native language.

Helps people to get rid of a traditional way of communication through phone calls and emails.

Benefits to Government Agencies

Addressing citizen issues made easy.

Delivering public services made easy

The Government can provide 24/7 availability and high accessibility to citizens.

They can decrease dedicated workload and time for responses.

Easy integration and management, hence inexpensive.

Government can provide multilingual support.

Chatbots are omni-channel. Hence people can get support on multiple platforms.

Here are a few chatbots from Government Agencies to serve citizens

1. Los Angeles CHIP (City Hall Internet Personality)

Chatbot for Los Angeles Business Assistance Virtual Network (LABAVN) assists more than 180 people every day. After the implementation of a bot, they say there is a reduction in mails up to 50%.

2. GovBot (Botty Bonn) of Germany

Answers to administration queries based on integrated administrative knowledge.

3. Citibot of North Charleston

A text-based chatbot in North Charleston, S.C. that helps people to report for city services.

4. Alex — Australian taxation office

Assists people with their tax-related inquiries.

5. Open Data Kansas City chatbot

It is a messenger chatbot developed to make open data accessible for non-technical users.

We can say that acquisition of AI is increasing steadily all over the world. India being the fastest growing country is not so far behind in implementing new technologies. Now turning towards that point, I must note that recently a few cities of India have started developing and implementing chatbots on their city portals.

These chatbots help citizens in accessing online information, report city issues, pay taxes and much more!

On 11th December 2017, RMC (Rajkot Municipal Corporation) in Gujarat- India launched their chatbot powered by “Floatbot.”

Here Floatbot comes in the picture, Floatbot is DIY chatbot builder which helps anyone to build a chatbot and integrate on multiple channels.