Avaya Helped NORAD Answer Children's Calls About Santa

For the 60th consecutive year, boys and girls eager to follow Santa's December 24 travels were able to call the NORAD Tracks Santa hotline with the help of Avaya.

Volunteers used Avaya's Customer Engagement Solution to respond to the children of all ages who flooded the hotline with calls. It is the same technology Avaya Government Solutions uses to support the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Operations Center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Calls fielded by the NORAD Tracks Santa hotline have grown steadily, totaling nearly 550,000 in the past five years alone. Last year set a new record with 134,970 calls from all corners of the globe during a single 23-hour period. Volunteers were at their posts again this year from 6 a.m. EST on December 24 through the early morning hours of December 25.

NORAD Tracks Santa began 60 years ago with a simple typo. A department store ad promoting a December 24 Santa hotline mistakenly listed the number of an air defense operations center in Colorado. Colonel Harry Shoup was on duty that night. Rather than hanging up, he had his team check the radar, find Santa's location, and share the information with every child who called. Since then, thousands of volunteers and corporate contributors have helped turn the program into an annual tradition.

"For several years, Avaya Government Solutions has been helping the North American Aerospace Defense Command keep the NORAD Tracks Santa tradition alive for Santa fans around the globe. The program was born out of the spirit of the season, and that same spirit sustains it today. We are proud to support NORAD's overall mission, including its annual NORAD Tracks Santa Program," said Susan Pompliano Keys, vice president of Avaya Government Solutions, in a statement.

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