State health dept contract with inContact

SALT LAKE CITY, US: inContact, a player in on-demand call center software and call center agent optimization tools, today announced that a state health department has selected the inContact call routing and interactive voice response solutions to create a state-wide customer service network.

In 2009, this health department served nearly 340,000 people, approximately one quarter of the state’s population, with its programs that deal with complex social, economic and individual issues, often helping people in crisis situations. The department handles all types of calls related to health department offerings, such as applications and claims for food stamps and Medicare related issues, to information about wellness programs, and health and human service referral services.

The health department could not adequately meet the needs of its residents with its aging premise-based solution, which only allowed them to manually transfer calls received from a central location. The state agency wanted a flexible solution that could enable them to leverage the department’s more than 200 employees spread across approximately 40 remote offices to provide faster, more effective service to their residents. The inContact call routing solution will seamlessly route the calls across the distributed workforce to ensure that the calls are answered by the most qualified representative.

The health department is also utilizing the inContact interactive voice response (IVR) system to facilitate self-service options for residents desiring to complete simple tasks such as making appointments to discuss welfare services, checking the status of a claim and more. The organization estimates that the IVR will offload the work of at least five full-time employees. Additionally, the health department expects to reduce their long distance expenses by at least 50 per cent as a result of changing to the inContact telephony offering, adds a press release.

“There is growing momentum for the cloud in the public sector, where cost effective and flexible solutions are key to providing essential citizen services,” said Paul Jarman, inContact CEO. “Building on our strength in the 2-1-1 health and human service referral market, of which inContact now supports an approximate 30 per cent market share, this contract with the health department will help us to open additional opportunities in the federal, state and local government markets. We look very forward to working with this organization to help optimize their call center operations, and will continue to aggressively pursue the large and growing opportunities within all areas of the public sector market.”