West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office Harnesses Power of Voice Assistant Technology
March 18 2020 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
New, custom Alexa skill provides constituents
with quick information
The West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office has added a new
customer service tool to its toolbox and joined a growing number of
government agencies using Amazon’s Alexa to provide constituents
with quick information about the office.
Alexa is a cloud-based voice service available on more than 100
million devices from Amazon and third-party device manufacturers,
and the numerous skills enable users to perform everyday tasks or
engage with content naturally with voice. The new custom skill for
the smart speaker is named West Virginia Secretary of State’s
Office and enables users to get answers to questions such as, “Who
is my county clerk?,” “What is the fee to file a Limited Liability
Company?” or “How do I register to vote?”
“We strive to be a leader when it comes to using new technology
to communicate with our constituents and make it easier to interact
with our office,” said Secretary of State Mac Warner. “Our new
custom Alexa skill enables you to get answers to the most commonly
asked questions about our office and the services we provide
wherever you are using the most natural user interface in the
world: the voice.”
The new skill is public and can be easily accessed from any
device that supports the platform once it is enabled for an
account. To enable the skill, the user says, “Alexa, enable West
Virginia Secretary of State’s Office." To access the skill after it
is enabled, the user says, "Alexa, launch West Virginia Secretary
of State’s Office." The skill also provides for a single question
and answer response with the ask command when the user says,
“Alexa, ask West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office ‘How do I
register to vote?’”
This new service is the latest part of a substantial effort by
the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office to implement
state-of-the-art technology for the benefit of the general
public.
This initial release of the custom skill focused on general
information and frequently asked questions. Planning is currently
underway for the next release which will be more interactive and
support complex questions and lookups with back and forth dialogue
for questions like “Where is my voting precinct?,” “What
presidential election had the highest voter turnout?” and “How many
businesses are registered in West Virginia?”
“We’ve barely scratched the surface with voice assistant
technology, and we have more exciting functionality in the works,”
Warner said. “Our new, custom skill is another example of our
ongoing efforts to provide the very best possible service for our
citizens and constituents.”
The new, custom Alexa skill was developed at no cost to West
Virginia taxpayers and was created by the West Virginia Secretary
of State’s Office in partnership with WV.gov.
About WV.gov
WV.gov is the official website of the state of West Virginia
(http://www.wv.gov) and is the result
of an innovative public-private partnership between the state and
West Virginia Interactive. West Virginia Interactive works with
state and local government agencies to build and manage interactive
online services and is a subsidiary of digital government firm NIC
(NASDAQ: EGOV).
About NIC
NIC Inc. (Nasdaq: EGOV) launched
the digital government industry in 1992, and continues to lead it,
providing a secure payment engine and thousands of digital
government solutions across a network of more than 6,000 federal,
state, and local government agencies. In addition, NIC is a leading
provider of outdoor recreation solutions, with 1 out of 6 hunting
and fishing licenses in the United States sold using an NIC
service. The company created the nation's first personal assistant
for government and comprehensive mobile platform, Gov2Go®, as well
as the innovative, data-driven prescription drug monitoring
platform, RxGov®. More information is available at
www.egov.com.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200318005009/en/
Ian McQuinn (304) 414-0265 x 1106 ian@wvinteractive.com Michael
L. Queen Deputy Chief of Staff & Director of Communications
West Virginia Secretary of State (304) 368-6339
mqueen@wvsos.gov
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