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County approves three-year chatbot contract after discussion over cost, privacy and utility
Summary
After a lengthy discussion about cost, scope and customer experience, the Finance and Administration Committee approved a three-year, $96,865 contract with Citibot to add a website chatbot; commissioners sought assurances on data scope, future voice options and implementation oversight.
The Finance and Administration Committee voted to approve a three-year contract with Citibot Inc. to provide chatbot software for the county website, with a total cost of $96,865 and a county commitment to the product as part of a broader customer-service improvement plan.
Scott Vannebosch, an in-house technology specialist, explained Citibot's role and scope during a long discussion that centered on whether the software justifies the cost. "The chatbot is designed to ease the experience for residents when they are looking for services," Vannebosch said, describing the platform's ability to crawl public website content and a separate knowledge base and to hand off unanswered questions to staff.
Commissioners asked about security, cost and alternatives. Commissioner Miedema asked whether a one-year pilot would be preferable; staff said Citibot offered lower per-year pricing on a three-year contract and that the county had budgeted for the expense in IT. Commissioners asked whether the product would use only county-provided content (rather than crawled external content) and whether it would be able to index PDFs and meeting minutes; staff said the platform would rely on content the county supplies and crawls from its own public site and knowledge base, and it can be trained to find information from PDFs and other documents the county chooses to include.
Several commissioners described real-world tests. Commissioner Jortsma said he tested a similar system on another city site and saw it return accurate, helpful answers. Commissioner Wenzel and others voiced concerns about older-style chatbots that frustrate callers; staff said Citibot uses modern natural-language processing, and the county plans to start with website chat and may add voice or SMS options later.
Security questions were raised. Staff said the chatbot will operate as a closed system: it will answer only from content the county provides or permits the vendor to crawl. Staff also said the implementation plan will include departments identifying their most frequently asked questions and training the bot's knowledge base.
Why this matters: the chatbot is intended to reduce staff time spent on routine phone questions and improve public access to county services. County staff estimated the current average staff time per inbound call is roughly 15 minutes across departments; commissioners said the platform may free staff to handle more complex tasks.
Vote and next steps: the committee approved the three-year contract by roll call. Implementation will involve training department content owners, setting privacy parameters, and tracking analytics to identify content gaps. Staff said they will present an outreach plan and launch timeline to the committee during implementation.
Ending: commissioners asked staff to monitor the system and return with analytics and usage reports after launch to measure whether the chatbot reduces phone volume and improves public access to information.
