What is a chatbot?

Our new chatbot is a text-based artificial intelligence digital assistant, designed to simulate human conversation. It uses pre-calculated responses to address common customer questions and can assist with various council service enquiries.

How does our chatbot work?

You can find the chatbot at the bottom right-hand corner of every web page on our website. Simply click “Chat with Us” to open the chat dialogue box. Type your question into the dialogue box and click “send.” The chatbot will scan our webpages and respond with the most appropriate answer.

You can continue to ask additional questions within the same session. If the chatbot doesn’t understand your question, you may be asked to rephrase it. Please ask one question at a time and make it as clear as possible. If the chatbot cannot find an answer to your query on the website, it will inform you in its response.

Examples of questions

The chatbot can access all the information published on our website so should be able to answer queries on any published information. See below some examples of questions that the chatbot will be able to answer:

• How do I get a birth certificate?
• How do I pay my council tax?
• What can I put in my brown bin?
• How do I apply for a council house?
• How do I book into a recycling centre?
• How do I report Fly-tipping?

Live agent message

If the chatbot cannot understand your request. You may want to speak to a live agent. You can find various ways to contact the council on our contact us page on our website.

Why are we using it?

The chatbot will provide help 24/7, ensuring that our residents can get help outside of regular office hours. It can handle a large volume of enquiries simultaneously, reducing wait times and improving service delivery.

Are there limitations to its use?

The chatbot cannot answer any questions related to personal details, please do not input any personal details into the dialogue box, for example your name, address or phone number.

Accessibility

The chatbot should work with all standard screen readers.

Data

All interactions with the chatbot are anonymised, ensuring user identities remain confidential. Conversation transcripts will be kept for analysis to improve service quality.

At the end of the conversation, users will be invited to complete a digital survey to share their satisfaction with the chatbot service.

Transcripts will be deleted in line with our data retention policy, which is 30 days.

Feedback

We appreciate all user feedback as this helps us monitor and improve the performance of the chatbot. You can provide feedback on your conversations with the chatbot within the chat window.