Election Outcome Influenced by IAT Calling Technology

Salt Lake City, UT – As a public service, Information Access Technology (IAT) allowed volunteers to use their telephones and CT Center Predictive Dialing (PD) and Interactive Communication (IC) system to place political-polling, voter information and reminder-to-vote calls for two nearby Holladay, Utah, City Council candidates.

Jim Palmer, Campaign PR Manager for Hugo Diederich and Cindy Hanks, said, ?I would attribute the calling program to our success in the election. It enabled us to break through the barrage of print advertisements people usually get, to speak to voters personally and to stimulate voter turnout. It was a close election. Influencing just 42 voters made Hugo the winner. Cindy had a 7 percent increase in votes between the primary and the general election. We were able to leverage our small core of campaign volunteers and do in 3-4 days what normally would have taken us weeks.

?IAT allowed us to use their predictive dialing and automated messaging technology as a public service and on short notice. I was impressed with their implementation time. They were ready for us to start making calls within 24 hours. The technology was so easy to use that volunteers with 5 minutes training could use it effectively. They were impressed with how many calls they could make in a single night. Volunteers could enter call results that were captured and printed on reports. That allowed us to more effectively target repeat calls using automated messages as a reminder to vote. The IAT Staff went out of their way to help us. They customized the application each day we used it. They stayed late on their own time. If I ever run another campaign, I would absolutely use this technology again.?

The first 4 nights, volunteers used predictive dialing and customized agent screens that displayed information about each person being called. Phone numbers and voter information came from the voter registrations rolls. Calling lists were created based on voting district and precinct. Volunteers had scripts giving specific information about each candidate. The candidates were in the office to answer questions, as needed. For three additional days, including election day, voters were contacted and given a prerecorded reminder-to-vote message specific to the profile of the person being called and the candidate for each district. Messages spoke the address of the polling place, based on the precinct in which the voter lived.

Reports show that 2,461 call attempts were made by CT Center PD, with 1,287 of those calls answered by a live person and 139 messages left on answering machines. CT Center IC made 4,481 attempts, with 1,156 answered calls and 1,236 messages left on answering machines. All prerecorded messages included the phone number of the candidate so voters could call to ask questions.

Randy Cooper, IAT Senior V.P., said, ?When we were asked if Holladay City election volunteers could use our phones, we suggested that they use our CT Center system to make them more productive. The experience was mutually beneficial. We learned how to create this type of custom application, along with providing a public service. The volunteers were able to personally speak to many more voters than they could have by manually dialing the calls. The automated messages based on voter profile allowed them to follow up personal calls with a personalized prerecorded reminder to vote. We appreciated the opportunity to stretch our capabilities and to encourage more citizens to vote.?

About Information Access Technology, Inc. (IAT) Information Access Technology provides predictive dialing and interactive communications contacting solutions for the collection industry and related markets. Their products are installed in hundreds of organizations throughout the U.S., Canada and South Africa. Using their latest offering, CT Center®, predictive dialing and inbound/outbound interactive communications can operate simultaneously on a single Windows® platform. By developing innovative and reliable products and providing outstanding customer service and support, IAT helps customers become significantly more productive and profitable. Founded in 1986, IAT is a privately held company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. To learn more about IAT and CT Center, visit our website at www.iat-cti.com, send an email to info@iat-cti.com, or call 800-574-8801.