3 Ways to improve government - citizen communication

Fatima Elleouet

February 02, 2021

How to use technology to create effective public services

Do you ever get frustrated with the slow response of your local city offices? Maybe it is a pot hole that never gets fixed yet swallows cars whole, or maybe it is poor street lighting making an intersection unsafe. 不管是什么问题, sometimes it feels impossible to reach someone that can fix things, much less know where to start to find the right department.

Governments around the world are working hard to improve communications with their citizens to address these issues and more. Public sector organizations are also working towards achieving an increased level of transparency by engaging their citizens in government processes. Around the world, governments are using digital transformation to encourage:

•公民参与和社区参与

• Gender inclusion through social and digital channels

•资源共享和循环经济

•包容所有人以减少孤独感

• Protection of vulnerable groups and increased safety

All these initiatives can only exist with community support and effective communications across all involved groups. Let’s see how technology can help improve citizen communications and gather community support. Here are just four ways that communications can be improved.

1. Offer simple online services and artificial intelligence

58% of people do their administrative requests online, 但发现它们太复杂而难以使用, 根据最新的 电子政府调查. 对于Y和Z世代来说, or those who are used to the instant gratification of the social medias and mobile experiences, voice-assisted AI in combination with online services helps citizens:

•查找并获取官方文件

• Make a request outside of working hours via chat, which is handled and automatically forwarded by a chatbot to the right service

•与合适的人会面

•要求跟进正确的服务

Automating these high-volume services can have a big impact on the public services back office efficiency too!

2. Stay high touch and friendly with live voice assistance for low-tech citizens

There is a digital gap with 42% of people not using eServices, 因为许多人更喜欢语音，或者根本不喜欢机器人. 为了提高效率, interactive voice response can pre-qualify many of the incoming calls and then route the caller to the right department, instead of letting them identify which team and person could help them with their request. High touch, phone welcome services are still alive, but they are much more effective today! 

3. 让公民参与和交流变得容易

Gathering citizen feedback via your eServices interface or mobile app helps reduce the number of requests done by phone or web - not to mention it will boost your citizens’ satisfaction! A very simple example is gathering citizen feedback on public services or giving citizens the option to send alerts for different topics such as public equipment deterioration. Often the citizens don’t know to whom to address their alerts, and with this service easily available on a mobile app, 他们不需要. You can define key topics and pre-define the departments that should receive notifications and let the technology do the rest!

These are just some examples of how to improve citizen communications. ALE’s team of 政府专家 can help you design your own citizen communications strategy and transform your public services experience.

Rainbow offers powerful citizen-facing and employee collaboration possibilities, 在多个通道上(音频), chat, video, 屏幕和文件共享). It can integrate into any government working environment in a transparent and non-intrusive way, 没有不必要的拆换.