The Swiss eGovernment Strategy 2020-2023 is well on its way to achieving the digitization objectives defined for this time period. Most projects, such as EasyGov.swiss, eUmzugCH, e-voting, etc., have already been launched or are more advanced in implementation. People's attitude towards e-services was positively influenced by the Corona crisis. 70 % of citizens surveyed as part of the eGovernment Monitor 2020 Study which is also referred to in the annual report, stated that they would like to use online services more in the future.
This year, a project of the Social Insurance Aarau (SVA) was among the supported innovation projects - a very successful project that works with the chatbot technology of aiaibot.
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In the current United Nations 2020 ranking, Switzerland is doing well in the area of eGovernment development and ranks 16th out of 193 countries. This makes it one of the more advanced countries in digital administration.
Every year, the eGovernment organization documents the progress made in realizing the strategy for digitizing public authorities in its annual reports. Among other things, the report summarizes the activities and provides an overview of how the defined goals were achieved.
eGovernment Switzerland also supports innovation projects from the area of public authorities that apply new technologies or promote regional cooperation. This year, a project of the Social Insurance Aarau (SVA) was among the supported innovation projects - a very successful project that works with the chatbot technology of aiaibot.Exciting insights can be found in the annual report in the Innovations 2020 section already mentioned in the introduction. The project of the Aargau Social Insurance (SVA), which deals with automated processing of customer inquiries with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), is of particular interest to us because it uses aiaibot's chatbot technology, amongst other things.
The SVA expanded its premium reduction consulting services by launching the «Maxi» chatbot and the «My Request» online form. Based on these two innovations, frequently recurring customer inquiries on the subject of premium reduction are now classified and answered automatically with the help of artificial intelligence. In advance, thousands of customer emails were manually evaluated, categorized and fed into the AI Module to make this possible. As a result, a hit rate (correct answers) of close to 95 % was achieved in the automated assignment and answering of queries. Customers can enter their concerns by email in free text or also use the online «My Request» online form.
The project is rightly regarded as a pioneer project in the field of digital public authority communication.
The inquiries are received in the premium reduction mailbox, which is directly supported by the AI function, or Chatbot Maxi supports the inquirers directly in the dialog on the website. Through these digital innovations, the SVA achieved a massive increase in efficiency in responding to standardized customer inquiries about premium reduction. In addition, customer satisfaction was greatly increased in parallel, as customer feedback shows. The project is rightly regarded as a pioneer project in the field of digital public authority communication. This is just one of various innovation projects that are the subject of this year's annual report.
Generally speaking, the eGovernment digitization strategy in Switzerland is well on track. Most of the implementation goals have been achieved, although some have been delayed a little due to the Corona crisis. Detailed information can be found directly in the report.
The eGovernment MONITOR 2020 survey shows that the Swiss have a promising digital affinity; after all, 60 % of the population used at least one public authority online service in 2020! The online service that is used the most is the tax return. Almost 60 % of the population already submit their tax returns digitally. And as already mentioned, 70 % of respondents plan to use digital online services more frequently in the future.
In addition, the annual report also shows how Switzerland compares internationally in terms of eGovernment and - based on the eGovernment Monitor 2020 study - sets out how the Corona crisis has affected the use and offerings of eGovernment services.
The fact that many Swiss citizens are willing to use such digital public authority offerings makes it clear that projects such as the one run by the Aargau social insurance make perfect sense and bring significant added value to both sides, even in the short term.
It remains interesting to see how the authorities will continue to develop in terms of digital customer communication in the coming year. The fact that many Swiss citizens are willing to use such digital public authority offerings makes it clear that projects such as the one run by the Aargau social insurance make perfect sense and bring significant added value to both sides, even in the short term. Several other authorities have already jumped on the digital bandwagon and are benefiting from the new technologies. For example, the WAS (Wirtschaft Arbeit Soziales) Luzern and the Justice and Security Department (JSD) Basel-Stadt, both of which work with the aiaibot software and platform. More exciting background information on the topic and concrete solution scenarios can also be found in the Whitepaper «Digitale Services für Behörden».
We at aiaibot are very pleased about the successful public authority projects and are happy to accompany other public administration bodies on their way to becoming «Digital First» representatives.