CallXpress Case Study
Louisiana State Senate and AVST CallXpress® Unified Messaging
BACKGROUND
On any given day, the Louisiana State Senate is as busy as a typical corporate office. Senators and their staff bustle about the State Capitol in Baton Rouge, sifting through and assimilating information vital to determining their position on issues that will soon be up for vote. A key consideration in making these determinations includes understanding how constituents feel about pending legislation that will impact their lives and businesses.
THE CHALLENGE
Associated with the Senate are 39 senators, 100 full-time staff, and 40 field employees. With such a large number of individuals working on a variety of time-sensitive matters, it is vital that senators and staff alike be able to communicate with one another quickly and efficiently.
However, because voice mail, faxes and email at the Louisiana State Senate operated on independent systems, effective communications became a real challenge. Take this familiar situation for example: a senator has just ten minutes before presenting her argument on an important bill. She’s at her seat in the Senate chambers waiting for a staff member to bring her the research material—due any minute via fax—which she needs to make her case. She is also hoping to hear from an influential constituent who will likely leave a voice mail or email message. In this environment, every second counts and every message has priority.
“When we're passing a bill, it's very important that senators be able to quickly obtain vital research and not miss important communications from constituents,” says Mike Baer, Secretary of the Louisiana State Senate. Baer, a lawyer by training, is the chief administrative officer and legal parliamentarian.
Baer knew that unified messaging—making voice, email, and fax messages accessible via desktop, wireless device or phone—was the answer. “We wanted to consolidate our communications, enabling employees to respond to constituents and receive information more quickly,” relates Baer.
After researching several unified messaging systems on the market, the choice was easy.
THE SOLUTION
AVST CallXpress® unified messaging provided the perfect solution to meet the needs of the Senate. “The Louisiana House of Representatives has been using CallXpress with great success and they have three times the number of representatives and employees we have,” said Baer.
CallXpress provides users with a single point of access to receive and manage all three message types—voice, fax and email—through their wireless device, telephone, the Internet or their familiar Microsoft Outlook® Inbox.
“CallXpress’ integration with Outlook has been a key element in the improvement of the Senate’s communications,” said Rob Kleinpeter, network administrator for the Louisiana Legislature. “While in session, the Senators rarely have time to check their voice mail via the phone. Since CallXpress makes receiving voice and fax messages in Outlook as convenient as receiving email, and the senators’ laptops are always on and connected, they are able to save a considerable amount of time by having instant access to all their messages in a single location.” he said.
The training burden often associated with new applications was not a concern or issue with CallXpress. Kleinpeter and other administrators were pleased with how smoothly training on CallXpress went.
“Because the legislators and staff were already familiar with Outlook, CallXpress training was made easy,” said Kleinpeter. “It was just a matter of showing them the voice form on the computer, how to play a message, slow it down, speed it up, archive it, fast forward and rewind, and how to voice forward and voice reply to their messages. It really wasn’t a big learning curve for them. And, best of all, everybody likes it!”
According to Kleinpeter, another feature of CallXpress that has resulted in significant timesavings and increased message security is CallXpress’ desktop faxing capability. CallXpress seamlessly incorporates RightFAX RightFax Enterprise – the leading LAN-based fax solution on the market today. “A lot of the information that is sent to and by the Senate members is confidential,” explained Kleinpeter. “Before CallXpress, confidential information sent via fax might sit out in the open on a fax machine available for anyone to read. As a result, legislators sent their messages via postal mail to insure confidentiality.
“However, with CallXpress, each senator can receive messages via fax with the confidence that only he or she will have access to the message. This has been a great added convenience that saves the organization time and money,” said Kleinpeter.
The convenience of desktop faxing through CallXpress also results in increased productivity. According to Kleinpeter, “We used to have people standing in lines at fax machines! Now, with CallXpress, users no longer have to leave their desks and walk 35 feet to a fax machine to retrieve or send faxes. Rather, those faxes come directly to their PCs where they can be viewed on their computer screen, filed on the network, printed out, or forwarded to others,” he said.
Kleinpeter and his team have been so pleased with CallXpress that they are making plans to make the full unified solution available to the Senate’s 144 single-PC remote offices. Currently, these remote offices have access to the RightFAX RightFax™ capabilities of CallXpress and they will soon be able to manage their voice mail from their PCs as well—which Kleinpeter expects will greatly enhance the efficiency and the convenience of remote message management.
“Overall, everyone is very pleased with CallXpress and its single user interface to do multiple tasks—tasks that used to require people to get up and go somewhere else to take care of, but can now be done from their desks,” Kleinpeter said.
Having easy access to information and communications is not only a plus for busy senators who need timely data to make wise legislative decisions; it is equally as important for the thousands of constituents whose lives are ultimately affected by those decisions.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc. (“AVST”) is a leader in the unified communications (“UC”) marketplace uniquely combining the strengths of its world-class messaging platform, CallXpress®, with its speech-enabled call management module, Seneca™, to create a powerful, next-generation unified communications solution. The Company’s products are designed to scale and support organizations of all sizes. For more information please contact us at: www.avst.com or +1.949.699.2300.
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