AI website chat for the Municipality of Eschlikon: answering residents’ questions around the clock

The website of the Municipality of Eschlikon offers a wealth of information: on administrative services, waste disposal, building, taxes, schools and leisure. But anyone looking for a specific piece of information first has to click through menus and pages.

Many residents therefore pick up the phone or send an email, often with questions whose answer is already on the website. This ties up time in the administration, and outside counter opening hours the question remains unanswered for the time being.

The municipality wanted to make its existing online services easier to access. The chat should:

• answer residents’ questions at any time and immediately,
• relieve staff of recurring enquiries,
• build on the existing website content without the administration having to write new texts,
• be ready for use quickly and without a large project effort.

Evoya AI built an AI website chat for Eschlikon and integrated it into the website www.eschlikon.ch. The content of the municipal website serves as its knowledge base. The project ran in three steps:

1. Build the knowledge base: The content of the municipal website was made accessible to the chat and structured.

2. Fine-tune the chat: Greeting, tone and appearance were tailored to the municipality and tested together with the administration.

3. Go live: The chat was embedded as a widget in the existing website, with no website rebuild.

After four weeks, the chat was live. It answers questions in full sentences, names the right contact points and links directly to the relevant pages and forms.

For residents

• Answers instead of searching: Anyone with a question asks it in their own words and gets the right information directly, including a link.
• Available around the clock: Answers come immediately, even in the evening, at weekends and on public holidays.
• In many languages: Residents who speak other languages receive information in their own language.

For the administration

• Fewer routine enquiries: The chat handles standard questions, so staff have more time for matters that need personal attention.
• No extra maintenance effort: The chat builds on the existing website content. The administration does not have to write separate texts for the chat.
• Implemented quickly: Four weeks from kick-off to go-live, with no rebuild of the existing website.
• Data protection compliant: By default, Evoya AI runs the chat in ISO-certified Swiss data centres, compliant with the Swiss FADP and the GDPR.

Learn more: AI for the public sector · Evoya Chat