How is this election year different from previous election years? The IP communications industry has changed tremendously in the last 4 years. Never has it been so easy to quickly provision and operate telephony applications.
Election campaigns are extremely dynamic and by nature demand immediate solutions. Now is the time for VoIP solutions providers to step in and show their capabilities. Some of our customers have been doing exactly that. Here are a few examples.
Temporary Call Centers - Obama and Clinton are running a close race. What do you do when the local “My Candidate for President” calls you up on Friday and tells you that they need a 25 seat call center setup by Monday so volunteers can “work the phones” the week before the primaries? Traditionally, you would be talking big bucks. Now that we have ubiquitous low cost broadband, hosted pbx services and cheap IP Phones the costs are minimal.
If you use a hosted PBX, all you need is a broadband connection, a router, some cheap ATAs, or IP Phones such as the Linksys PAP2 or the Grandstream Budgetphone 101 and you are good to go.
Message Broadcasting - “Your Candidate” wants to give a pep talk to thousands of supporters statewide the night before the election. What better way than to broadcast a message to all their phones? Sure, traditional service providers have sold such a service for years. However today with open source telephony and hosted voip platforms, campaigns can be developed and deployed fast and for low cost.
Virtual Phone Numbers, IVRs - Campaign offices and employees are constantly on the move during the campaign. With a hosted pbx - routing calls to the right person nationwide is a breeze. With hunt groups, time based routing and other standard tools, you will never miss a call!
Elections come once in 4 years, don’t miss out!
