AWS Public Sector Blog
Amazon Connect helps NORAD share Santa’s whereabouts this Christmas Eve
For the 67th consecutive year, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) will put technology to work to track Santa and his reindeer as they make their famous trip around the world. On December 24—the night before Christmas—children everywhere can contact the NORAD Tracks Santa (NTS) program to receive live updates on Santa’s whereabouts.
Beginning at 6:00 AM EST on December 24, families can check on Santa’s location by calling the toll-free number, 1-877-Hi-NORAD (1-877-446-6723).
In a typical year, the NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado receives over 150,000 calls from children around the world. Fielding all those calls takes more than 1,250 Canadian and American uniformed personnel and Department of Defense civilian volunteers, working from the early morning until midnight.
For the third year in a row, the NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center will be supported by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon Connect, an omnichannel cloud contact center service. With Amazon Connect, when on-site volunteers become busy, NORAD can simply transfer calls to volunteers working remotely. Remote volunteers make it possible to take thousands of additional calls about Santa’s whereabouts from children the world over.
Amazon Connect brings simplicity to call center operations. With only a few clicks, a virtual contact center can be set-up in minutes. Remote call center agents, like the volunteers manning the NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center, can be trained in less than 20 minutes, and all they need is an internet connection and a headset to get started.
“The NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center is an integral part of our program, and we are excited to have this technology that makes it easy to provide remote support to our call center operations, allowing us to take even more calls on Christmas Eve,” said 1st Lt. Sean Carter, NORAD Tracks Santa Program Manager. “We appreciate everything AWS and our incredible team of corporate partners are doing to spread joy this holiday season.”
“We are excited to continue our support for NORAD Tracks Santa again this year,” said Liz Martin, director for Defense at AWS. “Amazon Connect allows customers like NORAD to easily scale contact center operations to address increased call volumes. This Christmas Eve, as NORAD prepares to address more than 150,000 calls from inquisitive children, Amazon Connect will help manage the spike in demand to make sure questions about Santa’s journey from the North Pole get answered.”
For more information, families can visit the NORAD Tracks Santa website at www.noradsanta.org.
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