BACKGROUND
Wisconsin’s Racine County Human Services Department is Racine County Government’s social service and workforce agency. Human Services employees provide various public services, including workforce development, activities for youth and the elderly, and programs for the treatment of alcohol and drug abuse. Nearly 1,100 employees occupy six department-owned buildings as well as leased space in other buildings.

THE CHALLENGE
Mike Burks has been with the Human Services Department for the past 26 years. As operations manager, Burks is responsible for the telecommunications systems, networks, and other communications products for all of the department sites. “In a nutshell, I’m basically responsible for anything you can turn on, except for the lights,” says Burks.

Until about four years ago, each site used its own separate phone system. However, with employees occupying so many different buildings and offices throughout the county, the department discovered that it desperately needed a unified system. Employees were wasting a lot of time trying to connect to each other, not to mention the frustration the public felt when trying to call the right place. “Here we were, trying to provide valuable services to the county, but our telecommunications system was about as advanced as delivering mail by Pony Express,” says Burks.

With employees scattered throughout the county and thousands of people being affected by their services, the department needed a system to help everyone communicate effectively. Our department performs hundreds of social service tasks,” says Burks. “Developing and coordinating all our programs keeps us busy enough, and not having an effective communications system wasted a lot of work hours and detracted from what we really needed to concentrate on.”

With the help of a reseller vendor, Burks was able to implement the perfect solution to the department’s needs: CallXpress® from AVST Inc.

THE SOLUTION
CallXpress is a powerful, full-featured voice and call processing system that provides a true multi-application platform with effective solutions for all of a company’s communication needs. It features voice and call processing, unified messaging, fax processing, and call center and customer service applications all seamlessly integrated. Since CallXpress centralizes a company’s telecommunications, it provided exactly what Burks knew would work for the department. Plus, CallXpress is cost-effective because it is complete, efficient, and customizable. Although he doesn’t know the exact dollar figure, Burks says the county has saved thousands of tax dollars since putting the program in place about a year ago. Not only is the system efficient, it helps employees be more efficient since they’re able to concentrate on their jobs.

CallXpress has proven to be even more effective in the past year since Burks implemented the Desktop Message Manager at the site where he works. Employees in his building spend a lot of their time working at their computers, and Burks really liked the fact that he could implement the desktop program at the site where it was needed without having to implement it where it wasn’t needed. “We have CallXpress at all of our sites, but only the site where I work needed the desktop product,” says Burks. Desktop Message Manager gives users the ability to manage three types of messages from a single list. At a glance, you can see if you have email, voice mail, or even faxes waiting—without leaving your desk or picking up the phone And if you’re not at your desk, CallXpress provides the same level of flexibility in managing all three message types from any phone. With a single phone call you can access email and retrieve phone messages. CallXpress reads your email using specialized text-to-speech technology. Or, if you’d rather read your messages, you can simply forward them to the nearest fax machine—right from the phone.

One of Burk’s favorite features is the RightFax™ fax server. With enhanced fax functionality, RightFax provides more versatility and options than other fax solutions. RightFax lets employees know when they have faxes; then they have the option of reading, printing, or even forwarding the fax to a printer or fax machine. The server also offers telephone access to fax messages, a feature that’s unavailable in any other fax server. Burks especially likes that no matter what he’s working on, he’s immediately notified when there’s a fax waiting. He never has to leave his desk to check a central fax machine.

As operations manager, Burks has many responsibilities, and keeping up communications is a priority for an agency that serves the public. With CallXpress, Burks knows he has found the perfect solution for handling the call volume of the Racine County Human Services Department, which averages about 120,000 calls per month. “The CallXpress product handles a very heavy workload and has proven to be extremely reliable,” says Burks. “Every employee has an individual line, but there is an operator in case someone doesn’t know where to call. CallXpress has definitely helped us become a more effective public-service agency.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION
For 25 years, AVST has been shaping the evolution of communication, with more than 40,000 installations. 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.