The challenge

Amid the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, a nonprofit organization, 335forNC, had succeeded in obtaining a deadline extension for low-income families to apply for relief funds from the North Carolina Department of Revenue (NCDOR). The extension allowed low-income families with at least one child younger than age 16 who may have been unaware of the program, to apply for $335 in extra COVID-19 funding from NCDOR’s N.C. Extra Credit Grant program. Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, organizers of 335forNC, needed a partner that could mobilize quickly to deliver contact center technology and support services to provide critical outreach support and assist low-income families in navigating the application process.

Our solution

TTEC was engaged to assemble a virtual contact center to provide inbound and outbound support. Speed was essential. Within 72 hours we stood up a virtual contact center and related systems staffed with 60 experienced work-from-home associates. Most had recently assisted residents in another state with unemployment applications, so they were able to easily pivot to assist the similar grant application process with minimal extra training needed.

“A combination of leadership experience at the frontline and leveraging TTEC's technology allowed our teams to build a strong bridge to aid these North Carolina families."

- L.T. McCrimmon, administrator at 335forNC

After the virtual contact center was assembled, the 335forNC team, powered by TTEC and its associates, proactively reached out to those who had missed the deadline or had incomplete applications. For inbound calls, we assisted callers in filling out the application and populated fields for them.

We leveraged our comprehensive CXaaS technology resources, such as TTEC Intelligent Voice Assistant (IVA), to provide rapid responses and help callers submit their applications faster with a more streamlined caller experience. If more information was needed, the IVA connected the caller with a TTEC associate.

The results

TTEC handled more than 13,000 incoming and outgoing calls in the fewer than two weeks before the Dec. 7 deadline. In total, TTEC helped 24,946 families complete applications to the fund managed by NCDOR during the extension period, which will distribute over $8 million in grants to the applicants.

"TTEC's CXaaS platform provided 335forNC with the ability to rapidly deploy both the citizen engagement technology and the multilingual support required to serve a diverse set of families. The main goal was to assist families in need, and we were fortunate to gather the resources to navigate them through the application process. A combination of leadership experience at the frontline and leveraging TTEC's technology allowed our teams to build a strong bridge to aid these North Carolina families," said L.T. McCrimmon, administrator at 335forNC.