CASE STUDIES | BOPRC
Bay of Plenty Regional Council

TNZ's Voice Call Automation Helps Bay of Plenty Regional Council to send out flood warnings

Client Services
Bay Of Plenty Regional Council Voice Dashboard
TNZ's voice platform saves hours of phone calling, getting our flood warning messages out to farmers quickly and efficiently. It's easy-to-use and works reliably.

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council (BOPRC) is a local government authority in New Zealand. One of their responsibilities is to monitor weather events and river levels in their region and warn farmers and landowners with low lying land adjacent to the seven major rivers in the Bay of Plenty if there is potential flooding in their area.

Before TNZ, BOPRC managed flood warning calls manually. Flood Warning staff maintained a list of farmer's contacts in separate localised warning groups. If a predetermined river level was exceeded triggering an automated alarm staff started calling farmers using a phone tree system. If the first person on the list was contacted, they then in turn contacted the rest of the people on that particular list. If that person couldn't be contacted then staff had to work their way down the list until someone answered the phone and received the flood warning. That person would then start calling the rest of the people on their list. This was a time-consuming process.

Automating the warnings wasn't easy - email didn't solve the issue, as farmers were busy tending to their livestock, not at their computer checking emails.

SMS messaging fit the 'urgency' criteria; however, many at-risk farms are far outside mobile coverage and SMS messages couldn't send. These rural farmers relied on landline telephones to communicate.

Voice calling the farmers was the best option; when the phone rings it's urgent and gets answered, answered calls are measurable and trackable, and any device could be called - both landlines and mobiles. The only trouble was time!

TNZ's Automated VoiceCast system filled the void. If an adverse weather event was on-the-way, a staff member could log into TNZ's online dashboard from their laptop or mobile, select the list of farmers likely to be affected by the weather, choose from a list of pre-loaded voice warning templates, and send the urgent warning message. Each farmer receives the call almost instantly and simultaneously - no manual calling and no delays!

Flood Room Presentation
BOPRC's Mark Townsend showcases their latest Flood Room technology, July 2021

BOPRC staff can view call results in real-time using the TNZ dashboard. Failed calls and unanswered calls are automatically re-attempted and reported, giving the team visibility on which farmers need a manual follow up. If a call goes to voicemail, it can be optionally retried again or a voicemail message can be left. Each call's duration is logged so staff have assurance that calls were received and listened to.

As a result of using TNZ's voice solution, BOPRC has an automated voice calling system at a fraction of the cost of full-time employees manually calling in a crisis. Farmers are getting earlier knowledge of potential issues and can act faster.

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