October is Blindness Awareness Month: TCN Call Center Software Helps ‘Beyond Vision’ Increase Employment of Visually Impaired Workers by Over 400%
St. George, Utah – Oct. 7, 2020, TCN, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based call center technology for enterprises, contact centers, BPOs, and collection agencies worldwide, celebrates the success of its ongoing partnership with Beyond Vision. Beyond Vision is a 501(c)(3) self-funded, not-for-profit company with the mission of enriching the lives of people with vision loss through the dignity of work. The organization selected TCN’s optimized VocalVision solution to work with Job Access With Speech (JAWS) and has made it accessible to agents both on-premise and at home. JAWS is the world’s most popular screen reader, developed for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse.
Beyond Vision’s Success
“As a result of COVID, and thanks to TCN, we were able to obtain a 40-seat contract with the State of Wisconsin,” says Rob Buettner, VP of Human Resources & Business Services at Beyond Vision. “However, we didn’t have enough staff to execute on our own, so we partnered with five other non-profit agencies from throughout the country to employ mostly legally blind workers for this contract. Through the technology and capabilities of TCN, these new employees with vision loss can work from multiple locations, including home, enabling Beyond Vision to pull this program off.”
Buettner, who is legally blind, has benefited first-hand from TCN and Beyond Vision’s inspirational partnership. 70% of legally-blind individuals who are of working age are not employed, and Beyond Vision is working hard to do something about that. “TCN is excited about the work Beyond Vision is doing,” says Terrel Bird, CEO & Co-founder of TCN. “Our continued commitment to providing innovative technology that provides opportunities for all is a high priority.”
Approximately 12 million people 40 years and over in the United States have a vision impairment, including 1 million who are blind. “They’re either unemployed, or they’ve given up on looking for a job. Our overall mission is to create employment and upward mobility for Americans who are blind or visually impaired,” explains Buettner. “We believe that there is a lot of dignity that goes along with having a job.”
Every October, Blindness Awareness Month brings a heightened focus on the blind and visually impaired community and the realities of living without sight.
TCN’s VocalVision is a cloud-based call center software solution that allows for varying customization levels to meet customers’ accessibility needs. TCN’s creative and innovative telephony solution helped Beyond Vision increase the number of blind and visually impaired job opportunities they could offer by over 400%.
About Beyond Vision:
Beyond Vision has offered manufacturing services to customers since 1903 and has been ISO 9001 certified since 2002. Over the past 100 years, Beyond Vision has expanded to offer fulfillment, assembly, packaging, and customer care services.
Contact them for tours to learn how the use of 3D printing technology, screen readers, lean manufacturing philosophies, and poka-yoke techniques make all of these services possible with employees who are blind. Beyond Vision serves customers that include Briggs & Stratton, Harley-Davidson, GenMet, Caterpillar, Oshkosh Defense, R&B Wagner, GE, and the Federal Government. Schedule a tour to learn what these customers already know about Beyond Vision’s capabilities and how you can help to support our mission.
To learn more, visit beyondvision.com