Nudges That Promote Channel Shift: A Randomized Evaluation of Messages to Encourage Citizens to Renew Benefits Online

Abstract

Public authorities want to ensure that more citizens transact online; but they also face a minority for whom paper and face-to-face interactions are still preferred or needed. When citizens depend on public services, a nudge might be the best way to encourage them to shift channels. This approach is especially important when there is still a digital divide between those who regularly use online services and those who do not. Using cues developed from behavioral sciences, this article reports the results from a randomized controlled trial carried out in 2014 in Essex, England, where 5,817 users of a disability parking scheme (Blue Badge) were encouraged by the local council to renew online, either by a standard (control) letter, a simplified letter, one conveying collective benefit by appealing to the cost savings that could be achieved, and a group where a messenger communicated the desirability of online renewal. Both the simplification and the collective benefit treatments increased online renewals by six percentage points whereas the messenger had no effect. The experiment shows that nudges can be used by public authorities to encourage citizens to use online services irrespective of their age and level of deprivation.