RightNow Systems for IDOR

The Illinois Department of Revenue has released figures showing the improvement to service and insight provided by deployment of RightNow solutions. RightNow systems factor into most aspects of IDOR, a department responsible for the collecting of approximately US $30 billion annually for state and for local governments.

The department regulates riverboat gaming and horse racing, administers the state lottery, and regulates the manufacture, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages. The department oversees local property tax assessments, assists with collection of delinquent child support, and is the funding agent for the Illinois Housing Development Authority. The release of the hard statistics welcomed by the Bozeman, Mont.-based firm was announced two days ago. The most compelling statistic for RightNow representatives was clearly the figure showing that the volume of email individual IDOR employees needed to respond to dropped 83 percent over the period from January 2005 to January 2006. And, more importantly, the RightNow system reportedly “paid for itself” quickly.

“RightNow lets us use the Internet to maximum advantage, so we can better serve the taxpaying public,” endorsed IDOR communications specialist Adrianne Erley. “The system makes everyone’s life easier and paid for itself within six months.” Erly’s numbers went on to suggest that the Illinois Department of Revenue has significantly improved service, cut contact center costs, and gained “valuable insights” into taxpayers’ top issues by implementing RightNow solutions.

In the case of the IDOR implementation, RightNow touts their self-service interface, stating that “information is made available to taxpayers online through RightNow’s intuitive self-service interface.” Since the interface is also used by IDOR contact center staff, these employees “can give accurate, legally approved answers regardless of their individual expertise or experience.”

Resulting from this, say RightNow representatives, are fewer errors in taxpayer returns, which “further reduces IDOR workloads, while accelerating both revenue collection and distribution of refunds.” IDOR also uses RightNow to send newsletters to tax practitioners in order to keep them updated about system errors, problems, upcoming events, and pending legislation. This automated email system saves the department paper, printing and postage costs.

RightNow hosts and manages system’s software and hardware for IDOR on a turnkey basis. Comment on this happy bit of automatic free PR, RightNow government team vice president Steven Nesenblatt said, “The Illinois Department of Revenue’s experience demonstrates just how effectively RightNow’s technology addresses these challenges.”