BACKGROUND
Lane Council of Governments (LCOG) is a voluntary association of local governments in Lane County, Oregon. Since its inception in 1945, the agency has participated in a wide variety of projects and programs for local governments. Today, LCOG serves Lane County, the 12 cities within the county, as well as education, public utilities and other special districts.

One of the Council's recent charters has been to assist in coordinating a streamlined and reliable voice mail and call processing system for the region's eight core agencies including the City of Springfield, City of Corvallis, Eugene 4J Schools, the City of Eugene and Lane County. A key priority for the LCOG has been to replace its legacy voice messaging systems with a nextgeneration communications platform that will support the needs of the organizations and its 6,000+ users.

CHALLENGE
One of the biggest challenges facing LCOG was the coordination of a voice mail and automatic call distribution platform among its various government agencies, each with their own set of needs and requirements.

According to Dan Mulholland, Telecommunications Manager for the Lane Council of Governments, "One of the key issues facing us was identifying one voice messaging solution that could address the particular issues of eight different local agencies. We needed a solution that provided solid auto attendant and voice mail applications. Stability and support were also important factors.” Finding a messaging solution backed by a provider with years of experience in the government sector was important to Mulholland. Reference checks and site visits were part of the evaluation process. "In the case of Eugene/Lane County for example, we needed a system that provided for flexible, clockbased auto attendants, with decentralized departmental maintenance of recordings. Other systems would have forced auto attendants into a standard schedule.”

Another key issue facing Mulholland was the stability of the system. "With responsibility for recommending and supporting the communications infrastructure for the City of Eugene and Lane County, as well as all of the other agencies, having a reliable system that works the same way all the time is critical," he added.

THE SOLUTION
After carefully evaluating the options, the LCOG agencies selected AVST's CallXpress voice mail and call processing solution. LCOG needed a solution that was the least painful for Eugene/Lane County's 3,500 users while making it look like the Digital Sound system it was replacing.

"AVST’s Professional Services Team spent time ahead of the installation providing us with guidance for import of mailbox data; then spent a week with us, installing the software and providing training on voice mail administration and auto attendant programming. We ran both old and new systems for a time to allow users to initiate mailboxes. It took us a few additional months to complete migration of the auto attendants,” added Mulholland.

The fact that CallXpress had a telephone user interface (TUI) that was flexible enough to mimic important features of the Digital Sound system in place, made the transition to the new platform easier for the Eugene/Lane County users.

"CallXpress is a very powerful system capable of handling a variety of unique system configurations and it has worked flawlessly. It is stable and robust.

THE RESULTS
LCOG has standardized on a robust, reliable and cost-effective platform - one that is capable of adapting to the particular needs of the various agencies that LCOG supports. In the case of Eugene/Lane County, the need for a robust voice mail system that entailed a heavy degree of auto attendant usage was solved. The system provides 60 auto attendants, some fairly extensive, for citizens calling in to find out the status of their jury duty, or how to obtain a dog license or vital records like birth or death certificates and even elections.

"CallXpress surpassed our expectations," said Mulholland. “Our standard is that citizens should be able to retrieve information or reach the individual they need within 40 seconds. We are pleased that the system is powerful enough to cover a wide variety of applications. AVST’s professional services remained available to us to help as needed to apply CallXpress functions to our requirements."

CallXpress provided LCOG with a solution designed to meet the needs of 6,000+ telephone users today and tomorrow.

To date, the LCOG agencies have five CallXpress systems; one more is planned this year. “AVST offers software support and subscription agreements through its dealer network that are cost-effective; we were able to bundle into the purchase without the common hassles associated with dealers and manufacturers,” said Mulholland.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
For over 25 years, AVST has been shaping the evolution of communication, with more than 40,000 customers. Our award-winning CallXpress solution has been unifying communications for companies all over the world. So as the world of enterprise communications advances, you can be assured that AVST has your future covered. To learn more visit www.avst.com or contact us at +1.949.699.2300.