Imagine if… Your contact center had to scale at a moment’s notice

Imagine having a technology infrastructure that accommodates remote workers and scale for large volume spikes in your contact center, as needed. New Zealand’s Homecare Medical has developed a cloud-based solution that delivers excellent customer experience — from rapid scalability to meeting customers where they are.

Homecare Medical New Zealand is a social enterprise that runs 24/7 digital telehealth services. From helping a new mother with a concern about her baby to counseling teens who are experiencing suicidal thoughts, staff offer more than 20 free health, mental health and addiction support lines across digital channels.

The workforce of more than 350 professionals is spread across four contact centers, with 150 of those working remotely. The Homecare Medical team responds to about 3,000 requests from New Zealanders each day, across multiple channels — providing the care they need, when they need it.

In 2019, the organization was a Genesys Customer Innovation Award Winner. It received the “CX Game Changer” award for making a difference with customer experience technology. And it was recognized for achieving a 92% increase in annual contacts across voice, web chat, email, SMS and social media.

Innovation, Expansion and Growth

One of the characteristics that defines its success is how quickly Homecare Medical went from startup to taking its first calls. With only 15 weeks to build the system, it needed an agile partner — and Genesys came through, delivering the Genesys^® PureConnect^TM Cloud implementation on time and on budget.

The organization also required a roadmap to deliver innovation, expansion and growth and to constantly meet customer needs in the contact center. It’s doubled in size every three years so far, and needed to have scalable solutions. Not only was the Genesys product installed quickly, but it was designed to enable Homecare Medical to scale its workload up by 75% — seamlessly.

The contact center product was put to the test when New Zealand faced a horrific terrorist incident in Christchurch in March 2019. A gunman walked into two mosques and shot more than 100 people. The livestreaming of the event traumatized many people, but the Homecare Medical call center solution let the company scale up quickly and play a crucial support role. In the aftermath, the team provided in-depth counseling sessions to 16,000 people who were traumatized by the event.

Meeting People Where They Are

Customer experience is critically important to Homecare Medical work. Staff understand that, although it might be their 20th call of the day, for the person calling, it’s the most important thing in their day and possibly in their life. The organization needs a contact center solution that enables its staff to connect and build rapport perfectly, the first time.

One of its proudest accomplishments is the Homecare Medical 1737 service, a national mental health and addictions helpline number that’s available around the clock. Anyone, from anywhere in New Zealand, can text, webchat or call the toll-free number and speak with a mental health professional. The service has helped nearly 100,000 people since its debut.

With the Genesys multichannel contact center product as its foundation, the 1737 service can offer the service across multiple platforms to meet its customers where they are. The telehealth service provider needs to reach its staff where they are, too. The majority of staff work from home, so an intuitive, easy-to-use system was critical to recruit and retain quality employees.

Counting on Cloud

At its core, Homecare Medical is a healthcare organization. But it also relies on technology to deliver care virtually — to everyone in New Zealand. Its award-winning cloud-based contact center infrastructure empowers the staff to do their jobs, day in and day out — helping 3,000 New Zealanders every day with the medical services they need.

Find out what a Genesys cloud-based system could do for you.