Customers today are used to communicating digitally in all areas, both private and professional. Digital communication channels with their fast interaction options are simply part of the game today. It is therefore not surprising that this demand is now being made not only of companies in the private sector, but also of public authorities. In the private sector, efforts to meet these new customer demands are already well advanced. Customer experience, online offers and digital helpers that provide 24/7 service are the focus of competent and excellent customer service here.
But also individual government offices and authorities have already jumped on the digitization trend and are very successful with their digital offerings. A pioneer in Switzerland and a very good example of digitization in the public sector environment is the Aargau Social Insurance Institution. They have brought chatbot «Maxi» into the team as a digital helper, who actively supports them and inspires customers.
As early as 2017, the Aargau Social Insurance Institution (SVA) embarked on its digitization journey and introduced an online process that enabled applicants to submit their application for a premium reduction digitally on their own, without involving an employee. The goal here was to reduce the flood of paperwork that social insurance employees faced each year as much as possible. To support this process, Chatbot «Maxi» was launched on the website to advise customers around the clock on the subject of premium reductions and provide them with all the information they need to submit the application correctly.
Maxi is a great success with the citizens or the customers of the SVA. Urs Wälchli, Head of Cantonal Benefits (Kantonale Leistungen) and member of the Executive Board of SVA Aargau, is pleased and positively surprised by the rapid acceptance of the digital helper:
Customers are excited, which is also reflected in the high interaction rate with the chatbot - here our expectations were exceeded by a factor of three.
It took just 3 months to implement Chatbot Maxi, and after a short time, over 25 % of website visitors were already using it to obtain the information they needed for their premium reduction application. This significantly reduced the number of inquiries received via phone and email and brought a great relief to the staff.
The users of the bot who were questioned about their experience gave Maxi a very good reference: 92 % of them were very satisfied with the support provided by the digital assistant and with the new solution as a whole. But digitization is far from over for SVA. Since the end of 2020, the SVA has also been using email automation, which means that frequently received standard inquiries can be processed even faster and more efficiently. The Aargau Social Insurance Institution is also continuing to develop optimization options and new use cases for Maxi, because those responsible are certain that there are many more exciting use cases for the bot. In the meantime, Maxi can also accept and deal with changes due to marriage, address, birth, for example, and helps with adjustments if income has decreased or increased.
The success story of the Aargau Social Insurance Institution (Sozialversicherungsanstalt Aargau) makes it clear that digital customer dialog is just as suitable for government offices and agencies as it is for the private sector. So there is no reason for public authorities to wait before digitizing their services.
How government agencies can use digitization and automation (e.g., through chatbots or automated emails) to optimize their processes cannot be captured in a general «recipe.» Such solutions should definitely be developed individually and thereby precisely aligned to the respective use cases. We would therefore like to only summarize here the benefits that can be achieved through digitization both for the authority itself and for its customers/users:
Customers:
Authorities:
Increase in efficiency and productivity
Quality improvement
Flexibility in expansion and further development
Fast return on investment (ROI) and relatively inexpensive
The project also paid off quickly at SVA, as Urs Wälchli, head of cantonal services and member of the management team at SVA Aargau, describes:
From a business perspective, it is very relevant that we have an excellent ROI! The investment compared to the benefit paid off very quickly and the project was amortized after three months
These advantages make it clear that public authorities in general could benefit from at least some of these advantages by using digitization and automation in their communications with customers.
It is understandable that public authorities want to approach the topic of digitization cautiously. In any case, it is advisable to clarify the individual possibilities very precisely in advance. However, it is a fact that long-term business success, whether in the private sector or in public authorities, can only be achieved by investing in the customer experience. Even if a public authority can benefit from a monopoly position and doesn't really have to bother about customers, customer service employees benefit if they can interact with satisfied and friendly customers instead of dissatisfied ones.
In addition, efficiency is actually increased while costs are reduced and quality improved, and the digital communication channels and service offerings can be dynamically expanded on an ongoing basis and flexibly adapted to the situation. Our recommendation is therefore: Rather start quickly with a focus and expand the use cases to other areas in the next step than wait passively.