Managing high call volumes.
Making more time to serve.
How Missouri Valley Community Action Agency introduced Val, a Fortell virtual assistant that answers calls and schedules callbacks, to help staff stay focused on customers and applications.
“Our virtual assistant liaison, Val is her name, now answers the calls and can schedule call back appointments, which has been absolutely amazing and a very huge help.”
The challenge
For Missouri Valley Community Action Agency, a busy phone line was taking staff away from the work people needed them to do.
Cortney Mullins, the agency's Outreach Services Director, describes the daily volume of calls as a challenge many community action agencies would recognise. Answering those calls pulled staff away from serving customers and processing applications.
The agency knew it needed a different way to handle incoming calls. The aim was practical: keep customers connected without every call interrupting the team's other work.
Watch the Missouri Valley story
Watch on YouTubeThe solution: meet Val
Missouri Valley partnered with Fortell and introduced Val, its virtual assistant liaison.
Val now answers incoming calls and can schedule callback appointments. That gives the agency a way to handle the initial contact and arrange a follow-up with staff, rather than requiring staff to pick up every call as it arrives.
The director describes that combination of call answering and callback scheduling as a significant help to the agency. The change addresses the specific pressure that led Missouri Valley to look for a solution in the first place.
From testing to going live
The agency had a test AI assistant available within a couple of weeks of signing its contract. Staff could practise with it, try out the experience and work out how they wanted it to operate.
A few weeks after that, Missouri Valley was able to go live. The director's account emphasises having something the team could use and refine before putting it into service.
Those timings describe Missouri Valley's experience; they are not a promised implementation schedule for every agency.
A welcome change for staff and customers
The director reports a positive response from both employees and customers. Staff are grateful for the help, and customers enjoy interacting with Val.
She also says customers do not realise they are talking to AI. That is her description of the experience, rather than a measured survey result.
For Missouri Valley, the story is about a useful change to day-to-day work: an assistant that handles calls and schedules callbacks while staff continue serving customers and processing applications.
“Our employees are grateful for it and our customers absolutely enjoy it.”
Support that keeps pace with the agency
Going live was not the end of the working relationship. The director describes Fortell as responsive whenever Missouri Valley wants to make a change, whether large or small.
She highlights prompt replies to questions and the willingness to act on requested changes. That ongoing support matters when an agency is shaping a service around the way its team works.
The partnership gives Missouri Valley room to refine its assistant, rather than treating the initial setup as fixed.
Understanding community action
For the director, the difference comes down to working with a team that already understands how community action agencies operate—no time lost explaining the basics, and ideas that fit the way her programs actually run.
“Scott understands community action and that is a huge deal for us.”
Why it matters
Missouri Valley's experience starts with a familiar operational problem: calls that compete with customer service and application processing for staff attention.
Val provides a different first step. Calls are answered, callback appointments can be scheduled, and the agency reports a welcome response from staff and customers.
The video does not provide numerical results. What it does offer is a clear account of how Missouri Valley is using voice AI to manage incoming calls—and why the team values the partnership behind it.
Make more time for the work only your team can do.
See how Fortell could help your agency manage incoming calls and connect people with your team.
Request a demo