We also had a keen appreciation of how AI and chatbots had increasingly
become more accessible by consumers and businesses alike in the delivery
of information and services. So, we felt that it was a natural progression in
the development of our content and engagement strategy to make a
serious effort to see how we could likewise successfully harness the
potential of AI and chatbots to reach out and interact with our community.
Our listening and awareness of our community's behaviour also validated
our decision to build our chatbot on Facebook's Messenger platform
because that was where usage and engagement was highest for our our
consumers and target audience.
Although our consumers were happy with the earlier iteration of our
website and content-delivery methods, we wanted to further improve
their customer journey in navigating our website and, ultimately, to
ensure that our approach remained up-to-date with prevailing consumer
behaviour and tastes and, more importantly, that our content indeed
remained easy to find, understand and use in the increasingly digital first
and mobile first economy.
Our single-mindedness in focusing on digital content and social media has
been validated by our more than 27,000 Facebook followers and monthly
unique website visitors in excess of 10,000 which has enabled us to reach
about 100,000 people who are looking for legal information and answers
to law-related questions on average every week.
Today, LawGuide Singapore is Singapore’s fastest-growing and most-
followed online legal information portal and platform in terms of social
media reach and engagement.
In terms of our use of AI, we are immensely proud that our small team has
designed, built and delivered Singapore's first law-related chatbot.
Currently, we've embedded our guides on Criminal and Family Law into
our Facebook Chatbot. The chatbot firstly uses quick replies to assess the
user's situation and thus addresses his or her needs accordingly. For
example, a user who has indicated that he has been formally charged in
court will be directed to information more relevant to him than, say,
someone who has not even been arrested. This way, users find the specific
service they need, even if they aren't familiar with the timeline of legal
proceedings.
We've also designed our Facebook chatbot to recognise and respond to
common phrases and queries. User queries do not need to match our pre-
programmed phrases exactly. For example, the phrases “I need a lawyer”,
“lawyer consultation”, and anything in between will all trigger the bot to
respond helpfully with a lawyer directory and contact information.