Speech Takes the Pain out of Jury Duty

Jury Systems, a provider of jury management systems for courts around the country, added interactive voice response (IVR) capabilities to its JURY+ Next Generation suite of products. Jury Systems is branding the IVR product as the Jury+ Voice solution.

The IVR is a custom-built application specifically designed for the courts by American Telesource Inc. (ATI), a provider of IVR, Voice over IP, call center, and PBX applications. It is built on the Intervoice speech platform.

The enhanced JURY+ Voice Solution provides jurors and prospective jurors with the ability to interact with JURY+ Next Generation through touchtone and speech recognition phone interfaces. JURY+ Voice allows callers to hear instructions, request postponements, request disqualification, obtain court instructions, and more. The system can also activate, at the juror’s request, a reminder call to let him know in advance that he needs to appear at court for jury duty.

In the past, courts that wanted to provide prospective jurors with self-service phone access to juror information required third-party vendors to develop, install, and support the system. By teaming with ATI on the voice system, Jury Systems can offer a turnkey solution to the courts without them having to go through a third party.

"It also makes the courts more productive," says Patrick Bahar, senior account executive at ATI. "Without an automated solution, they would have to hire additional staff to handle mundane questions from jurors. That would be more expensive for the courts, and lead to longer wait times for the jurors."

ATI’s solution for Jury Systems has already been rolled out to a number of courts throughout California. The company also has provided speech systems to other jury management solutions providers.