Around 1.2 million hits and hundreds of thousands of searches are recorded every month by the official website of the City of Vienna. The city’s citizens use the website to conduct official business, search for information or use the online services of the municipal administration. With the launch of the WienBot, the City of Vienna has created a new information and communication channel for the Viennese public as a complement to the website. The WienBot gives automated answers to questions about the city’s most frequently used services and supplies relevant information quickly and on the spot. Unlike a search engine, the Wienbot does not display a list of results to scroll, but immediately comes up with the right answer – concise and to the point. The WienBot will tell you where the nearest drinking fountain is, for instance, or the fastest way to the Gänsehäufel lido, or when the next bus will arrive.

Chatting with Viennese charm

The City of Vienna aims to make its public information and services straightforward and easy to use, regardless of the communication channel. The City of Vienna website provides comprehensive, detailed content, while the WienBot is all about information for immediate use. People looking for specific information while out and about need a different kind of content to those accessing the web from home. The WienBot is aimed at an audience that wants a smart way of consuming information quickly and on the go, but without foregoing the personal component.

The chatbot can also reply in proper Viennese dialect. This special function puts the emphasis on authenticity and gives chatting with the virtual civil servant an extra helping of Viennese charm. The Wienbot’s responses do not consist solely of factual information or sober lists of facts. On the contrary, the WienBot aims to engage people in dialogue, as equals and with a sense of humour. Not only does the WienBot integrate emojis into its own answers, it can even respond to them in an intelligent way.

Why a chatbot?

Chatbot technology can speed up processes and make them much simpler, especially in enquiry services. A chatbot is a text-based computer program based on artificial intelligence that simulates a conversation between two people.  More and more organisations are using chatbots to support their customer services, and the City of Vienna is no exception. The WienBot thus supports the digitalisation initiatives of the municipal administration, ensuring that information and services of the City of Vienna are increasingly available in digital and mobile format as well as analogue.

Contact

E-Mail: redaktion@wien.gv.at

Website: www.wien.gv.at/bot (in German)