Indian Railways may deploy chatbots to improve customer service
In its endeavor to provide better services to its users, Indian Railways may soon use chatbots to respond to train queries and boost customer experience. In the past few years, Railways has been quite open to embrace technology. However, using chatbots to offload the mundane work is an absolute first for the Railways sector. Here's all about it.
Either Microsoft or Oracle to help Indian Railways with chatbots
World's fourth largest railway network, Indian Railways deals with about 13 lakh ticket bookings daily on IRCTC's website. Another 10 lakh people visit it each day just to check ticket status. The idea of using chatbots to better deal with passenger traffic was discussed at a recent Railway conference on artificial intelligence. Railways is likely to pursue it further with either Microsoft or Oracle.
What is a chatbot?
A chatbot, in this case, is a computer programme that uses Artificial Intelligence to simulate human conversation via voice commands, text chats or both. It's among the fastest ways of addressing a query. Though they are not humans, chatbots can think and respond like us, but without human bias, making them ideal tools for customer service.
How can it help?
Indian Railways aims to deploy chatbots primarily for addressing passenger queries, including those related to schedules, ticket availability and specific trains, which are currently being done either manually or through the SMS/IVRS technology. Chatbots can also significantly improve consumer interaction in various regional languages. Other than chatbots, AI can also help Indian Railways with better asset and crowd management.
