Dubai: A Dubai Electricity and Water Authority’s (Dewa) virtual employee has been single-handedly answering queries from its customers 24/7, eliminating the need for them to visit Dewa’s offices.
Rammas, Dewa’s artificial intelligence-based chat-bot, has addressed 276,756 enquiries from customers since it was launched in the first quarter of 2017. It supports the directives to reduce the number of visitors to Dewa’s offices by 80 per cent.
Derived from the local Emirati dialect meaning “a chatting person”, Rammas is capable of learning and understanding the needs of customers, according to their enquiries. It analyses these based on available data and information and takes action to accurately answer all queries.
A Dewa spokesperson told Gulf News, “Rammas is a smart and easy option for customers to find answers to their queries, and interact with Dewa’s system. It also acts as a supporting option for the customer care centre, website and mobile application. It also enables easy access of information for Dewa customers through its natural language processing and artificial intelligence-based capabilities.”
Dewa is the first public organisation in Dubai to make use of an artificial intelligence platform.
“Artificial intelligence (AI) is a fast-growing arena, and it will be highly important to have similar AI-based applications to ensure that Dewa is providing the best services to achieve customers’ happiness.”
Rammas is able to provide services round the clock and respond real-time to any query, even live conversations, within less than five seconds.
To verify this, Gulf News quizzed Rammas and the AI was able to provide accurate information within a fraction of a second.
Available in English and Arabic, Rammas can provide billing information when given an account number, track the status for disconnections and reconnection of services, as well as provide information on technical and consumption complaints.
Dewa is working to position Rammas on all its social media platforms to make it accessible to all soon.
