(NOTE: Includes Findings from the Final Report)

Project Plan

This grant responded to 2003 Priority Area 4: Expanding Customer Service through Agency-Initiated Contact. A large percentage of delays in children receiving their child support were due to missed appointments, forgotten hearings, and delinquent support payments. This project planned to use automated dialing as a non-confrontational means of reminding both custodial and non-custodial parents of upcoming appointments and payments due without the involvement of CSE staff. The project sought to reduce the number of missed appointments and delinquency payments, and increase payments due on support orders and the rate of collections among the approximately 44,000 clients served in the State.

The project used a "PhoneTree 3500" automated dialing product based out of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The automated dialing system has three components: 1) Non-custodial parents were called and reminded of upcoming appointments with the child support agency and court hearings up to three days in advance; 2) Non-custodial parents were called with a reminder that the first payment will be due on new child support order, and on an initial delinquency on a new order; and 3) Custodial parents were called and reminded of upcoming appointments with the child support agency.

Project Findings

The project monitored call volume through the use of North Carolina's Data Warehouse System, and showed an average of 1,877 calls per day or 59,345 calls per month. Between August 2003 and November 2004, statewide appointment attendance showed an increase from 56% to 61%. Statewide hearing attendance rose slightly, from 85% to 87%, for the same period. Between August 2003 and December 2004, delinquencies on new orders that were resolved within 30 days rose from 31% to 38%. The project also received positive feedback from local offices regarding increased court appearances by non-custodial parents.

The project did not evaluate cost-effectiveness; however, the automated dialing product's cost was exceeded by the increased amount of collections brought in. The software cost only approximately $16,000, yet there were unforeseen increased costs to the State due to the need for additional staff at the customer service center to answer follow-up phone calls generated by the automated calls.

The project plans to continue the established automated dialing protocol, and is proposing the following enhancements: 1) Calls to all non-custodial parents with cases in delinquency/enforcement status for more than 60 days; 2) Calls to all non-custodial parents with cases in delinquency/locate status for more than 60 days; and 3) Calls to custodial parents with cases in locate status for more than 60 days to obtain updated information about the non-custodial parent.

Lessons Learned

Best practices and lessons learned by the project include: prepare the database with as many updated and missing phone numbers as possible; have procedures in place to correct incorrect phone numbers in the database; eliminate unnecessary data from the batch files that are downloaded to the automated dialer, i.e., social security number and date of birth are not needed for reminder calls; save data for six months on CDs.

Note: The May 2004 Child Support Report contains an article on the NC Automated System - http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/pubs/2004/csr/csr0406.html