Benzinga | Mar 11, 2021 09:15AM EST

NIC Highlights Launch Of Digital Tool, TeleGov, For Appointment Scheduling

Leading digital government solutions firm NIC Inc. has launched a new digital tool, TeleGov, making appointment scheduling easy for a growing number of government agencies across the country.

The Software as a Service (SaaS) solution features back-office and front-end easy-to-use tools, including self-service forms, automatic reminders and payment processing, to manage inbound government agency traffic. TeleGov is designed to support every state, city, county and municipality.

Already, the appointment scheduling solution is being used in eight states: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, Nevada, Wisconsin. Currently, agencies such as the Department of Motor Vehicles, Department of Revenue, Labor Cabinet and Department of Public Safety are using the appointment scheduling tool for motor vehicle, property tax rebates, county clerk and, most recently, COVID-19 vaccine appointments.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated the need for digital government services like TeleGov that make appointment scheduling easy and secure, while keeping government employees, citizens and business owners healthy and safe," said Harry Herington, NIC CEO and Chairman of the Board. "NIC is pleased to be able to offer our partners at the state, local and federal level a proven appointment management solution that clearly checks all the boxes."

Built specifically for government using Microsoft technologies and hosted in Azure, TeleGov has both back-office and front-end features that allow agencies to:

* Schedule and manage in-person, phone or virtual appointments

* Notify constituents through automated text and email reminders

* Manage forms, including building, modifying, sending and uploading

* Process payments through NIC's secure payment system

TeleGov can be deployed rapidly and is backed by strong customer support: secure configuration for every agency, turnkey reporting tools, training and local customer service.

Mississippi was the first state to implement TeleGov as part of the "Skip the Line" program for the Department of Public Safety. Since its launch in September 2020, more than 133,000 appointments across 16 unique appointment types have been scheduled using the TeleGov platform, with over 75% of people using a mobile device and 70% opting for text notifications. Most importantly for citizens, service times have decreased to 15 minutes. Prior to the TeleGov launch, all appointments were walk-ins handled using an in-person or virtual queuing system and resulted in crowded waiting rooms and long waiting times for citizens.

Alabama, Nevada and Arkansas are all using TeleGov to schedule COVID-19 vaccine appointments. Since Alabama's launch on February 1, the tool has securely processed 187,816 vaccine appointments at 61 county health departments across the state. On the day of launch, the system was at its busiest, scheduling 2,445 appointments per hour.

Learn more about TeleGov at nic.egov.com/telegov.