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City of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Goes Live with
Selectron's Interactive Utility & Tax Systems
PORTLAND, OREGON — August 30, 2005 — Selectron Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of interactive voice, web and mobile solutions for public sector clients throughout North America, announced the successful implementation of Selectron’s VoiceUtility™ and VoiceTax™ interactive voice response (IVR) systems for the City of Saskatoon today. With over 80,000 utility accounts and 66,000 tax accounts, Saskatoon’s new system will help more than 600 customers and citizens each day by allowing them to check on their utility and tax bills through a user-friendly voice menu system over their phone. The system includes speech recognition, so users can simply speak the menu numbers to access the information they need, or they may use their touch-tone keypad to navigate through the system.
“One of the greatest challenges for the project was the compressed time schedule,” said Todd Johnston, President & CEO of Selectron Technologies. “The City of Saskatoon uses a custom billing database, and their former IVR provider’s lease was set to expire. Normally, given the complexity, size and scope of the project, a timeline of less than 60 days to implement such a project – including the latest in Speech Recognition technology – would be prohibitive. We appreciated that both organizations were able to work together effectively to meet the high expectations of the City.”
“We are just delighted with Selectron’s performance on this critical project,” said Judi Morin, Project Manager with the City of Saskatoon. “Not only did they present the most cost-effective bid, their proposal offered a feature-rich, enterprise-wide solution using state-of-the-art technology that will allow the City to fully leverage its investment. We were able to place both applications on a single server, for example, and will be able to add on other applications in the future. There were no outage complaints during the transition, and we have a combined 146,000 utility and tax accounts. Best of all, our customers are enjoying the new speech recognition capabilities, which give them the option of using the system by talking into their receiver or using their touch-tone keypad.”
Now that the first phase of the project is completed, Selectron and the City are working on phase two, which will deploy Selectron’s Dynamic Information System (DIS) and Meter Reading modules. The DIS module will allow callers to access pre-recorded messages on procedures and policy, where they can pay their bills or pick up forms. The Meter Reading module will assist rural customers who must report their meter readings to the City each month. Once installed, these customers will be able to call in and report their meter readings whenever is most convenient, 24-hours a day, seven days a week, without the need to speak to City staff during regular business hours.
Saskatoon is centrally located in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada, just 780 kilometers northwest of Winnipeg, a little over 520 kilometers southeast of Edmonton, and just over 300 kilometers north of the U.S. border. It is Saskatchewan’s largest city, with a population of 205,900 and growing. Saskatoon is also home to the University of Saskatchewan, which is the only university in Canada to house all five health science colleges and a major teaching hospital on the same campus. Innovation Place, located on the university grounds, is one of the most successful university related research parks in North America. Saskatoon is also considered to be the agriculture biotechnology capital of Canada, with Saskatchewan growing half of the entire quantity of Canada’s major export crops.
About Selectron Technologies, Inc.
Selectron Technologies, Inc. is the premier provider of single agency and enterprise-wide interactive voice, web and mobile solutions for public sector entities throughout North America. Its innovative, cutting-edge technology products and services are helping local government jurisdictions increase cost-efficiency and effectiveness by providing real-time, user-friendly information and payment option services to their constituents while increasing cost-efficiencies and taxpayer satisfaction. Selectron Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1991 as a division of Selectron, Inc., a leading provider of security systems in the Pacific Northwest. It emerged in 2002 as a privately held, independent corporation located in Portland, Oregon.
For more information, please visit Selectron
Technologies or call (866) 878-0048.
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