Council launches pilot of new digital tool on its council tax billing and support web pages to see how well it can help residents with queries
Croydon Council is aiming to make paying council tax simpler for everyone with a new AI assistant on its website that can help local residents find the information they need. The hope is that the AI assistant can help answer queries quickly and easily.
Photo by Umberto / Unsplash
Of course, that would be good for residents with queries. It’s also good for the council, as it can help staff find the answers they need, too. What’s more, the council receives more than 1m contacts each year from residents with queries of one sort of other. Reducing that number means that council staff can devote more time and resources to other, more pressing issues.
Based on Microsoft Copilot, the AI assistant responds to queries put to it by searching the information on the council’s website. It can do this much more quickly than a person can browse the same information. In testing so far, the AI assistant has given ‘good’ results to more than 80% of questions put to it.
Even so, the council is proceeding with care. It will gather feedback on the performance of the AI assistance over the course of the pilot. It will also be working directly with residents to assess how well the assistant meets their particular needs. This assessment will then inform any wider rollout of AI assistance across other parts of the council website.
The council also stresses that the AI assistant is additional tool to help residents more easily find the advice, guidance and information they seek in the most convenient way to them. Residents will also still be able to browse and search the council’s site without using the assistant. Telephone advisers will remain on hand to help with queries, for no charge.
This pilot is part of Croydon Council’s wider efforts to modernise its website and other digital tools to better aid residents.
Jason Perry, Executive Mayor of Croydon, says: ‘Our AI Assistant is just one of the ways in which we are changing the way we work at the Council to improve the services we offer our residents. We want to make it quicker and easier for them to find the information and advice they need, when they need it, so we are improving our website and online services.
‘As well as introducing new digital tools, we are improving our customer experience across the board. And if more people can find the information they need online, this will free up officer time to support people who need extra help.’
In related news:
Leave a Reply