California Political Candidate Uses Newly Released Voicent BroadcastByPhone 2.0 Software to Provide Personal Touch in Reaching Constituents

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:


For: Voicent Communications Inc,
26344 Esperanza Drive, Los Altos, CA 94022
Contact: Michelle Mann, Voicent Product Evangelist
Tel: 650-814-9037 or 800-948-1198
Email: michelle@voicent.com or info@voicent.com


California Political Candidate Uses Newly Released Voicent BroadcastByPhone 2.0 Software to Provide Personal Touch in Reaching Constituents


LOS ALTOS, CALIFORNIA, November 22, 2004 – When Los Altos Hills resident Craig Jones decided he wanted to make a serious difference in public education, infrastructure, and other issues surrounding this affluent Silicon Valley community, he wanted his voice to be heard by running for Los Altos Hills City Council.

Jones wanted to personally reach the more than 2,500 registered voters of the picturesque Los Altos Hills community, but he was faced with the problem of how to effectively deliver his messages. Besides exhaustively walking door-to-door through the rolling hills, he used the newly-released Voicent BroadcastByPhone 2.0 software, developed by Voicent Communications (http://www.voicent.com), as an alternative approach. The product was released just in time for the start of the November 2 political campaign.

BroadcastByPhone 2.0 is an easy to use, automatic PC-based telephone notification system designed for small businesses and organizations that need to effectively reach large numbers of people but in a highly personalized manner. BroadcastByPhone's rich features make it an ideal communications tool for group event notifications, political campaign promotions, fundraising, customer surveys, service reminders, product promotions, and other activities.

BroadcastByPhone provides an advanced features set that enables users to record their own voice messages using any telephone. Users no longer need to worry about noisy microphone recording. They can broadcast their voice messages at a set broadcast time with automatic retries if the line is busy or there is no pickup. The software can detect a human voice versus an answering machine, and provides interactive voice commands for human responses. Users can also record incoming RSVP messages so they can gauge their recipients' responses. BroadcastByPhone's user-friendly call log viewing gives users complete status details about their calls.

BroadcastByPhone's powerful message designer feature allows users to compose and edit personalized individual phone messages using a mixture of text-to-speech and voice messages. BroadcastByPhone also allows users to easily import call lists from their existing database, using the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet interface. In addition, it checks the US Federal Do Not Call List. This feature is included in every version of the product, including the product's shareware version.

According to winning candidate Craig Jones, Voicent BroadcastByPhone helped him personally reach all of the Los Altos Hills residents. "The [Voicent] automatic dialing program was an effective boost to my City Council campaign. It complimented my direct mail and personal contact in a very cost- and time-effective manner. We estimate that my calls reached virtually 100% of the homes in our town, and provided a personal touch. It was great knowing that all our residents heard from me personally."

Kathy Evans, campaign manager for Jones, explained how BroadcastByPhone was an effective communications tool during the campaign. Evans said, "It would have taken us hundreds of hours to call every member of our community. BroadcastByPhone was a great product that helped us in many ways. This is the product to use for anyone running for public office, wishing to contact their customers, or even calling for school phone trees!"

Voicent BroadcastByPhone is available in Standard and Professional versions as well as a free shareware version with a 20-call list size capacity. The Standard version is priced at $299 and works with unlimited call list sizes. The Professional version is priced at $499 and provides unlimited call list sizes, a message designer that includes text-to-voice and voice message capabilities, and interactive touch tone and voice confirmation and response.

An evaluation copy of Voicent BroadcastByPhone 2.0 can be downloaded from the Voicent Communications web site at http://www.voicent.com. Further information about Voicent BroadcastByPhone 2.0 or any of the other Voicent telephony products can be obtained from Michelle Mann, Voicent Marketing, by calling 650-814-9037 or 800-948-1198 or via email at michelle@voicent.com or info@voicent.com.


ABOUT VOICENT COMMUNICATIONS:
Established in 2000, Voicent Communications is a leading provider of PC telephony solutions, developing scalable application platforms and products capable of handling a single user to millions of users. Their products include Voicent BroadcastByPhone, BroadcastByEmail, AutoReminder, and their flagship Gateway, an open standards-based VoiceXML gateway for telephony applications. Voicent Communications is located at 26344 Esperanza Drive, Los Altos, CA 94022, telephone 650-814-9037, fax 360-323-0378.


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