Government Services Through Live Chat

The 20th century has seen advances made by man surpassing the development of the centuries before it. Science and technology, governance and the philosophy of civilization has undergone a marked transformation. The public sector is a world in itself, with the management of 4 billion people in the world; governments have their hands full, providing everything to the population from utilities to services and healthcare.

Support for Citizens

Organizations and departments belonging to government are responsible for the delivery of all services received by a citizen. The supply of water, power, food stock, the building of infrastructure, and the administration of justice and just about anything one can think of is the responsibility of the governments that administer us.

Departmentalization means responsibilities for delivery are delegated to government agencies and departments, and these departments are responsible to the citizens whom they serve and the representatives of public administration.

A few examples of such departments, under their various ministries, are;

The department of corrections.

The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)

Civil services.

Sanitation departments.

National power grids.

Etc

As is inevitable, citizens have business to conduct every day with these departments, from getting your passport made to making complaints to the sanitation department or getting a permit from the FD for a bonfire. Every day hundreds of thousands of people approach the government for a multitude of reasons and most have to wait for hours in a queue simply waiting to exercise their rights as citizens or call and wait by a phone, conceivably for hours, before they can speak to anyone. It is about time that advancements in internet technology are focused upon improving the quality of life for all citizens in general.

A similar model to commercial web chat support

Since the mid-nineties, most government agencies have set up resource websites for the delivery of information to citizens, instead of having the vast crowd approaching government offices for small proposes. The next obvious step in this type of Citizen Service is live chat support.

The commercial web has turned to live chat in a big way. With website customer support agents proactively approaching interested visitors, and behaving as website stewards/ salespersons/ after sales support persons etc. The same concept applies in nearly the same way for government agencies, especially those which have a huge amount of inquiries from a never ending flow of internet traffic. These inquiries are received/ answered normally by post, phone, Fax or e-mail; which is a time consuming process, with hundreds of agents processing hundreds of thousands of inquiries and requests every day. It would be a simpler solution to implement chat support, where each agent, trained and well versed in any manner of government business, working for any government agency can handle the work in real time.

Citizens would come onto a website and almost immediately get in touch with an agent via a small browser chat window.

Agents would be able to handle multiple citizens at the same time, a feature in multitasking unique to chat and impossible with post or phone. This would also reduce the government department's customer service cost.

Agents would be able to redirect confused or lost citizens to the correct web page instantly, or transfer them to a superior agent or department officer if such is required.

Citizens would feel personally and individually served by polite and amicable chat agents, and per writing and stored messages would mean the passage of standardized information to everyone.

The public would have a convenient chat-stop for any inquiries or to set appointments or seek advice, potentially 24-7, wherever they are in the world.

Government offices/ telephone services would be subject to lower congestion and less maintenance costs.

The service would provide citizens of all ages the opportunity to learn computer and internet usage.