News

City of Lorain, Ohio Adds IVR and IWR Solutions to Utility Department for Round-the-Clock service

PORTLAND, OREGON — January 1, 2008 — The City of Lorain, Ohio has improved its customer service and made its utility services more accessible to the public by opting for a cost-saving technology solution. With its implementation of Selectron's VoiceUtility™ and WebUtility™ systems, the City is addressing the growing challenge of accepting various payment methods along with walk-in customers


"We were looking for a single company to provide solutions for taking both credit card payments over the phone and also providing our customers with a web payment solution," says Lorain's Utilities IT Manager, Troy Werner, explaining the City's reasons for choosing Selectron as the vendor most qualified to implement its interactive voice response (IVR) and interactive web response (IWR) solutions.

"Because not all IVR vendors offer both solutions, the decision came down to two companies with Selectron being the company of choice because of their ability to meet our requirements," says Werner. "Selectron offered us the ability to provide our own hardware if we so desired, the ability to interface with our in-house credit card payment processing software, a track record of working with our legacy hardware platform, and they offered this solution at a lower price than their competitor."

According to Werner, "Most credit card payments over the phone are from people who previously mailed in a check for their payment; our walk up volume has not decreased. Since we began taking credit card payments over the phone, we have not added any additional cashiers to handle the increased volume. The volume has increased to the point that a new cashier would  be needed without the implementation of an IVR system to handle these calls."

"We are extremely excited about the implementation of the VoiceUtility and WebUtility products," says Werner. "We are currently averaging over 450 credit card phone payments a month, which were being handled manually by our cashiers. This benefits our customers, who now have 24/7 access to their account information and the ability to make a payment over the phone or on the Internet."

"We are pleased that the City of Lorain has chosen VoiceUtility and WebUtility to help handle the credit card processing in the Utility Department," says Selectron Vice President, David Fay. "Our overall understanding of the utility environment and our ability to rapidly build a web and phone interface into their existing New World financial system make us the perfect vendor to deliver a solution that will free up their cashiers to service the walk-in volume and focus on more challenging customer service issues."

About Selectron Technologies, Inc.
Selectron Technologies, Inc. is the industry-leading provider of interactive voice, web, and mobile solutions for government agencies. Its extensive product suite helps increase staff efficiency, reduce infrastructure cost, and ensure customer satisfaction. Equipped with the industry's top talent, proven methodologies, and nearly twenty years of experience, Selectron offers innovative and cost-effective interactive solutions that can benefit any municipal department – building and planning, business licensing, elections, courts and citations, taxation, utility billing/finance, zoning, and more.

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