City Deploys Speech Application to Improve Community Service

The City of Fountain Valley has a new voice-activated phone system. The City has implemented Active Voice’s Seven speech-enabled auto attendant system in City-operated facilities. Seven will serve as the City’s friendly voice-activated interface to quickly greet and route callers to the person or department they wish to reach. In addition, Active Voice’s Seven system will help manage the daily influx of internal calls from the City’s 250 employees.

The City contracted with Seattle-based Active Voice, LLC, a global provider of voice messaging, unified communications, and speech-enabled solutions.

“Our number one priority is providing superior service to the citizens of Fountain Valley,” said Lee Pratt, Information Systems Manager for the City of Fountain Valley. “We saw a need for a more efficient and streamlined communications system that would provide better public and internal access to information and services. It was a simple case of using technology to help solve our communication challenges.”

The new voice-activated system will connect callers to individual City departments. For example, when callers say “Public Works,” they are immediately transferred to the Public Works Department. Callers can also enter the extension number for the department they wish to reach and be connected quickly.

In consultation with Active Voice reseller, Digital Telecommunications Corporation, the City chose to deploy Active Voice’s Seven system over other products on the market. “We receive a high volume of calls per month from both our constituents and employees, many of whom experience long wait times for the receptionist,” explained Pratt. “We needed a cost-effective solution that could eliminate our callers’ dial-by-name and zero-out frustration by simplifying the transfer of both external and internal calls. It was also important for us to deploy a solution that allowed callers to speak as they would in normal conversation so that they would feel comfortable using the system. Seven has definitely helped us improve our community service and created a positive impression with the public.”

”In our experience as a systems integrator for over 24 years, this is the first speech-enabled auto attendant application that offers so many benefits,” said Ray Maccani, Vice President of Sales for Digital Telecommunications Corporation. “Seven’s high name recognition accuracy and user-friendly interface can benefit virtually any type of organization. In many cases, the system will pay for itself in a very short period of time.”

Active Voice’s Seven product is an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system designed for organizations in virtually every industry, including the government sector. Seven asks callers to say the name of the person or department they wish to reach, retrieves the name from a database, and then connects them to the appropriate extension. In addition, Seven can easily manage internal calls from employee to employee, thereby eliminating the need for an operator .

“The Seven system is well-suited to meet the needs of government offices like the City of Fountain Valley,” said Victor Foia, Active Voice’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “People can call into the system, just say the name of the person or department they wish to reach, and be connected immediately. Waiting for a receptionist or struggling through a litany of touchtone choices is time-consuming and inefficient. In addition, Seven enables organizations to provide constant access to important ‘information on request’, such as community events, public safety announcements, and hours of operation without utilizing a live operator.”