Political Seasons Provide Perfect Growth Opportunities for Cloud-Based Contact Center Technologies

When election cycles heat up, so does communication. Political parties, candidates and grassroots organizations alike want to get their messages out and heard. They aim to strike a chord with constituents to spur them to head to the polling stations and take an active role in local and national elections.

A critical component in political outreach is fairly old-fashioned in today’s highly connected world – the telephone. Driving the success of that channel is cloud-based contact center technologies. With them, political parties and community organizations can reach more people, more quickly, to achieve their desired results.

The stats speak for themselves. TCN’s hosted contact center suite was the technology behind more 140 millions calls and surveys during the previous election cycle (2012-2015). This year alone, we expect that number to reach 200 million calls and surveys.

The numbers signify huge growth and opportunity across the board. Political firms and strategy companies are reaching out to their audiences to speak about key issues and conduct surveys and research. Without a cloud-based call center, the task would be next-to impossible. That kind of manpower is hard to come by—even with a battalion of volunteers and interns—not to mention the time. They require a solution that will facilitate hundreds and thousands of calls a day.

And that solution is TCN. We help clients scale communications efforts to ensure people are reached with the right message at the right time – while adhering to industry rules and regulations. From surveys to get out the vote calls, our call center platform offers the right mix of features and functionality to empower each organization to connect with their target audiences. Read on to find out how.

1. Surveys

TCN manages several types of surveys, including “right party verify.” The goal is simple: identifying the right people for your organization’s message and ensuring they’re ready to vote in local, party-based primaries. A first step toward this goal is often the survey. It narrows the contact list, making later communication easier to accomplish.

The second is a simple or complex decision-based survey. It often acts as a follow-up to the first so that clients can gather additional demographic data and personal information. The objective is to understand the target audience and gauge its temperature about specific issues and/or candidates.

A vast majority of the projected 200 million calls that TCN will be managing this political season will be decision-based surveys. In fact, TCN has already been used in national spotlight and national polls during this political cycle!

2. Opt-Out Do Not Call List

Compliance matters. Our solution helps organizations and firms stay within current laws and regulations from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). They don’t have to worry about fines or other punitive measures, and they always have a clean list of people to contact with messages about upcoming legislation, polls, events and the like because of built-in compliance measures. This becomes even more important as the election season heightens and groups rely more and more on mobilizing the voting public via phone calls.

3. Polling

Political polling, at least during election cycles, is a specific type of public opinion sampling. Via TCN’s cloud-based solution, clients can better manage the effort to ensure an accurate sample size with statistically significant results.

The platform’s polling capabilities are end-to-end, meaning clients can poll voters throughout the entire election lifecycle. The questions asked vary by organization and geography, but most express interest in people’s engagement with the political process, opinions about candidates, views of the campaign(s) and voter preferences.

4. Get Out The Vote Calls

While surveys are our most used feature during the political season, we also see a lot of activity with Get Out The Vote (GOTV) calls. In the past, calls were simple scripts asking people to participate in the election and reminding them where and when they could vote.

The calls are more sophisticated today with our increased access to data, which increases voter turnout. TCN’s outbound functionality can include special recorded messages tailored to a voter’s geographic location, party affiliation and other specifics to help ensure that they don’t stay home on day.

5. Issue-Based Campaigns

Some issues aren’t single vote political items and require additional touch points between organizations and constituents. TCN makes it easy to set up and implement a campaign for any length of time and enable follow-up with contacts before, during and after the vote takes place.

6. Local and Regional Grassroots Efforts

Our cloud-based software isn’t meant only for large firms. It scales to a regional and local level, too. School boards, community organizations and mayoral candidates can leverage TCN to affect civic engagement and voter turnout.

In that same vein, organizations can easily add staffers as-needed to address growing call demands, no matter the size. With a cloud-based solution, offices don’t need to invest in costly hardware or installation to get new callers up and running.

7. Central Campaign Hub

Firms and organizations can create a centralized campaign communication hub using TCN’s call center technology rather than purchase individual components. With the full solution, they can easily manage a vast team of on- and offsite volunteer agents. The software also ensures a clear link back to campaign headquarters with a branded dashboard, reports and messaging. Everyone has access to the same technology suite and features regardless of location, such as the GOTV calls, compliance with TCPA regulations, live polling and the ability to blend inbound and outbound calling.

8. Real-Time Reports

The shining star of the TCN solution has always been its real-time metrics and reports. Political firms of any size can use data to assess campaigns, monitor agent performance and make adjustments accordingly.

In addition, they can use the data to inform decision-making, both in real time and after the fact. Clients who have worked with us for multiple years name this a huge benefit; they can compare historical and current data to build even more compelling and actionable campaigns.

The election cycle is heating up. Are you prepared for it? Get ready with our cloud-based call center technology today. You’ll be able to adapt to changing political conditions, develop a deeper understanding of your target audiences and be armed with data to positively impact voter participation.

Cast a vote for better political calls today – request a demo of TCN.