There’s no question interactive voice response systems can help many businesses increase productivity and ultimately improve profitability. But they can also play a key role in the smooth functioning of government, as reported by interactive voice response systems provider Angel.com in a just-released case study.
An interactive voice response system from Angel.com helped the International Republican Institute (IRI), of Washington, D.C., ensure fast and accurate reporting of election activities. The International Republican Institute (IRI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to advancing freedom and democracy worldwide.
Among its many activities, the IRI sends delegates to foreign countries to monitor and observe election processes to ensure they are open and transparent and follow the democratic process. IRI has monitored more than 130 elections in more than 40 countries.
Shawn Beighle, Information and Technology Director at IRI sought to automate the delegate election monitoring and reporting process in order to enhance the timeliness and accuracy of the information collected.
Traditionally, field delegates would record observations in a hand-written notebook. Due to travel and other challenges, that practice resulted in 2-3 day turnaround from the time when elections were observed to the time when information was reported back and compiled for evaluation and reporting. An Internet-based solution was unrealistic because of limited Internet access in remote and sometimes undeveloped areas.
Instead, IRI rolled out a new IVR application from Angel.com, that provides an easy-to deploy, easy-to-use telephone-based solution that facilitates data collection and reporting.
During the 2007 Nigerian elections on April 14 and 21, 2007, IRI deployed 17 monitoring teams comprised of 59 international delegates throughout the country. As standard cellular coverage is unreliable in the region, each team used a satellite phone along with a short questionnaire of eight key questions to help IRI gauge the voting process at each polling station visited.
If the prompts did not provide sufficient context, delegates had the option to leave a voicemail to provide more details. Messages and survey findings were instantly sent to IRI’s election observation command center where they were listened to and incorporated into the overall findings.
Through the use of the Angel.com Virtual Call Center, IRI was able to collect enough quantitative data to confidently release its findings to the media soon after the elections, and thus give citizens of Nigeria and U.S. policymakers additional information to judge the validity of the country’s electoral process.
“The biggest benefit of the Angel.com IVR is the benefit of real-time information,” said Beighle. “As reports in Nigeria poured in from across the country, we were immediately able to see what was happening throughout the region.”
According to Beighle, the ease of implementation and lack of IT support required was another plus, as IRI’s small IT department supports more than 500 people in 47 countries. Angel.com’s Site Builder interface enabled Beighle to build and deploy the IVR application without the support or involvement of IRI’s IT team.
“A great advantage of Angel.com is the empowerment. The user-friendly and intuitive solution enabled me to easily create my own application,” he said.
Simple and fast to create and cost-efficient to run, the new telephone-based application provided the organization with an incredibly useful new tool that it plans to rely on in elections to come.
Beighle will give details on the case study at the next of its Customers Best Practices Series Live Webinars, to be held July 18 at 2:00 PM EST. To register, please click on this link.
If you’re interested in finding out how Angel.com can improve your call center and interactive voice response capabilities, please visit their website.
Spencer Chin is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Don't forget to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users.
Internet Protocol (IP) | X |
IP stands for Internet Protocol, a data-networking protocol developed throughout the 1980s. It is the established standard protocol for transmitting and receiving data
in packets over the Internet. I...more |
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) | X |
A hardware- or software-based computer system that enables incoming callers to interact with voice prompts or verbal commands....more |