Carmine

When people hear words like autodialer or automated telephony, they tend to think that such products apply only to telemarketing firms or pushy fundraising organizations. This does not have to be the case. The truth is that automated telephony products have a broad range of functions and uses that can be employed by a multitude of organizations. One such product is Voicent Broadcast by Phone autodialer software, and one such use is notification of church events.

Using Broadcast by Phone to get the word out about your local church event is simple. First, download and install the software on your computer and attach a voice modem. Next, use your existing telephone to record a message which will be delivered to the people you will be calling. Alternatively, you could type a message and use Broadcast by Phone's Text-to-Speech (TTS) technology to turn the text into a verbal greeting. Third, make a list of all the names and numbers of people who are going to be called and notified. Lastly, start the autodialer or configure it to start at a scheduled time. It will call down the list automatically, playing the message you made to each person.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, however. Using TTS, you can create messages with variables that can be replaced with actual values at the time of the call. This can be used to make custom, personalized messages. For instance, let's say you want to remind everyone of what they are supposed to bring to the upcoming church bake sale. You could write a message that says something like, Hello, [name]! This message is to remind you to bring your delicious, homemade [baked good] to the First Unity Church Bake Sale this Saturday at 11am. Be sure to bring your [wife/husband]; it'll be fun for everyone! You can write the script this way, but when the message plays, the variables in italics can actually be replaced with that person's name, the dish they have agreed to bring for sale, and their spouse. The personal touch can make all the difference!

Broadcast by Phone is what is known as a smart autodialer, meaning it has the ability to interact with the respondent by understanding both verbal and keypad tone commands. Using this technology, you can allow your fellow churchgoers to confirm whether they will be attending the event in question. For example, record a notification message, and at the end give respondents the option of pushing 1 to indicate they will be there, 2 to say they cannot make it, or 3 if they aren't sure yet. It's like RSVPing, but instantaneous!

Now, of course, comes the perpetual question: cost. Unless you are lucky enough to belong to a very wealthy church in which case you probably don't need a lot of fundraising anyway you probably don't have a lot in the budget to spend on frills like autodialers. You'll be relieved to know, then, that Broadcast by Phone is a very affordable solution, mostly because it doesn't require you to be any expensive extra equipment. In fact, Voicent makes a trial edition of the software package that is available for use for free!

Now that you know the benefits of Voicent Broadcast by Phone, and the low cost at which these benefits can be made available to you, there's no reason not to try it for your church's next event!

Andrew Kern - Technology evangelist for automatic phone technologies, including Autodialer, Predictive dialer, and VoiceXML gateway