Telephony Services

Service capabilities:

• WaTech Connect Contact Center – a cloud-based contact center that offers a range of features designed to enhance customer service and streamline contact center operations. 
• Life-Safety – Telephony capabilities specifically designed to support 24/7 facilities—such as hospitals and correctional institutions—that require onsite telephony equipment for survivable communications to protect life and safety.

Service capabilities scheduled for sunsetting:

• Centrex –  WaTech sunsetted this service Dec. 31, 2025.  We are no longer accepting requests for new Centrex services. 
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR) – an automated telecommunication technology that allows callers to interact with a computer-operated phone system using voice commands and touch-tone keypad inputs. WaTech will be sunsetting IVR services June 30, 2026. 
• Public Branch Exchange (PBX) – a large enterprise telephone switch used to deliver dial tone and voice features. WaTech will be sunsetting PBX June 30, 2026.  Read more information about this change.

WaTech Connect Contact Center 

WaTech Connect Contact Center allows WaTech customers to use cloud-based contact center functions in a highly adaptable environment. WaTech Connect can leverage other AWS services like Polly, Lex, Pinpoint, Lambda, S3, and more along with a variety of digital and voice channels to provide the end user with fully immersive experience to meet their needs. WaTech Connect can retrieve information from a computer database or other data source to automatically provide the information to customers or to the agents assisting the customers through secured interactions. Answers to frequently asked questions can be made available to customers for self-service. Automation using WaTech Connect can reduce staff time, operator errors, and enhance customer service. 

Features & Benefits 

• Cloud based Contact Center that includes direct inward dial (DID) that can scale up or down at a moment’s notice. 
• Pay-as-you-go pricing, so that you only pay for what you use. 
• High-quality audio that delivers 16kHz audio and is resistant to pack loss. 
• Flow routing for voice, chat, and tasks that include contact queuing, analytics, and management. The flow includes setting logging behavior, setting text-to-speech language and voice, capturing customer inputs (spoken or by pressing 0–9 on the phone keypad), playing prompts, and transferring a customer to a queue. 
• Skills-Based Routing to increase efficiency among agents, minimize wait times, and ensure the end customers get the assistance that they need. Routing is based on variables such as availability, skillset, customer sentiment, and past history. 
• Call Recording comes integrated for agent performance assessment to help monitor and improve customer experience. 
• Agent Workspace provides a single, intuitive application for your agents with the tools and step-by-step guidance needed to onboard quickly, resolve issues efficiently, and improve customer experiences. It combines the ability for agents to accept calls and chats using the built-in Contact Control Panel (CCP). 
• Task Management for follow-up items to resolve customer issues and requests are essential to maintaining high customer satisfaction making it easier for you to prioritize, assign, and track agent tasks to completion, including work in external applications, to ensure customer issues are quickly resolved. 
• IVR, Chatbots, and Contact Center automation provide intelligent tools for automation including natural language understanding (NLU) integration, context conversations, and task management self-service tools that work across both voice and digital channels. 
• Web and Mobile Chat using Amazon Lex supporting asynchronous messaging and encryption using compliance certifications. 
• API Integration uses AWS Lambda so that you can create personalized experiences by accessing virtually any backend system and retrieving information to anticipate end-customer needs and deliver answers to questions before they are asked. This could include customer information on past purchases, contact history, or customer tendencies. 
• Outbound Campaigns use voice, SMS, and email to serve your customers quickly and improve agent productivity, while supporting compliance with local regulations. 
• Predictive Dialer with Answering Machine Detection designed to automatically call customers on a list, while throttling outreach based on predicted agent availability. The dialer also uses a machine learning (ML) model to distinguish between a live customer, voicemail greeting, or busy signal, connecting agents only with live customers. 

Pricing 

The monthly charge is based upon two items: the number of users you choose to have configured and the usage charges for AWS Services. 

WaTech provides: 

• Initial implementation services for the initial setup of Contact Flows and ancillary AWS services for a one-time setup fee of $1,500 per queue. 
• Day-to-day user management include adding users to Azure Active Directory security groups, adding users to Amazon Connect instances, and adding users to WaTech’s billing system. 
• Troubleshooting any issues with Dial-Tone, Contact Flows, and other AWS micro services integration with the Amazon Connect Contact Flows. 
• Maintaining the security of the AWS environment to the Washington state 141 standards, including VPCs, EC2s, IAGs, CloudTrail, GuardDog, ECR, and IPv4 addresses. 

Customer Responsibility: 

• Any application management of any other AWS services that integrate with the Amazon Connect Contact Flow. 
• Agency is responsible for all administration of 3rd party applications and AWS enhanced services or special circumstances. (Evaluations, workforce optimization etc.) 

• Life-Safety PBX 

• Life safety service - telephony capabilities specifically designed to support 24/7 facilities, such as hospitals and correctional institutions, that require onsite telephony equipment for survivable communications to protect life and safety. This service is typically implemented as a Life Safety PBX (Public Branch Exchange), ensuring that critical communications remain operational even during network outages or emergencies. 

Features and Benefits: 

• Survivable Onsite Telephony Equipment: Ensures that communications remain operational even if the main network or cloud-based systems fail, supporting critical life safety needs in 24/7 facilities such as hospitals and correctional institutions. 

• 24/7 Availability: Designed for continuous operation, supporting facilities that require round-the-clock communications for both routine and emergency situations. 

• Life Safety PBX: Dedicated Public Branch Exchange (PBX) systems are installed onsite to guarantee survivable communications, especially during emergencies or network outages. 

• Integration with Enterprise Telephony: Life safety service is part of a broader telephony enterprise capability, which includes cloud-based phone systems and contact centers, ensuring seamless communication across the organization. 

• Compliance and Standardization: Mandated for all Washington state agencies, ensuring uniform standards and reliable life safety communications across the enterprise. Waivers and exemptions are available for specific cases, such as emergency operations centers or sites requiring satellite phones. 

• Enhanced Safety and Security: Provides reliable communication channels for staff and emergency responders, ensuring that critical information can be exchanged during emergencies, disasters, or network failures 

• Operational Continuity: Supports uninterrupted operations in facilities where communication is essential for life safety, such as hospitals, correctional institutions, and emergency operations centers. 

• Regulatory Compliance: Helps agencies meet statewide technology standards and information security requirements, reducing risk and ensuring adherence to official policies 

• Flexibility for Special Cases: Allows for exemptions and waivers in situations where standard telephony solutions may not be feasible, such as sites requiring satellite phones or machine-to-machine communications. 

• Centralized Support: Backed by WaTech’s authority and expertise, providing agencies with guidance, support, and standardized solutions for life safety communications. 

Back to top