News September 2009: Voicebank Information Line
Dust Storm - Was Your School Inundated with Phone Calls?
Did you have the ability to keep parents up-to-date on yesterday's situation from 7am onwards?
If not, Voicebank is a service you should consider.
Voicebank is a phone-in information line, using a local or 1300 number, which parents can dial to hear recorded messages providing the information they need regarding emergency and day-to-day situations, 24 hours a day 7 days a week. This keeps the School's main reception phone line free for normal day-to-day calls.
Easy To Use Phone Interface
To update the information it's simply a case of picking up a phone to add a message to the School's dedicated Voicebank Information Noticeboard.
The messages can be added by any member of the staff in possession of the passcode, or the School may have an appointed message board administrator who adds new messages, and deletes those no longer relevant. Calls to the line can be made by mobiles or landlines so that Voicebank can be updated from any location.
School Schedules to Parent Notices
Parent Notices, Student and Course Information, School Trip Arrival Times, Event Notification, Press Releases, Emergency Closure Status Updates and Public Announcements are easily accessible via the Voicebank phone number. The service is particularly useful in keeping the local media informed of upcoming School events, with reporters looking for a local interest story able to easily check for relevant messages.
Keep Parents, Staff and Students Informed and Up-to-Date
Parents feel greater involvement with their children's school when they are kept up-to-date with the School's activities, changes in schedules, or even the curriculum.
Keeping parents informed can be costly and time consuming, involving teachers and staff in preparing printed material for distribution either by post, or less reliably the students themselves. This is compounded by the production costs, whether printed or photocopied.
Emergency Information Line
As an emergency information line Voicebank is invaluable as parents and students will make the number their first port of call when establishing school status during an emergency such as Fire, Flood or Dust Storm! The number can then be used to provide updates on progress as the recovery process takes place.
Alert Notification
Coupled with the optional SMS alerts advising that new messages have been posted, the Voicebank Phone Noticeboard service provides an additional and highly cost effective method of keeping parents, students, teachers and staff up-to-date with School news and information.
How Much Does it Cost?
A simple Voicebank service costs from only $65 per month for a local number with the ability to take up to 60 concurrent calls. Further options and SMS features are available.
Who Supplies Voicebank?
Voicebank is supplied by Premier Telephony Provider X-on who have a long history in supplying Schools, the Police, Fire Brigades, Health Authorities, Government Depts., Utilities and Business with the Voicebank service. X-on have the capacity and resilience to handle high volumes of incoming traffic.
