NSW DCJ taps Genesys tech to house bushfire victims

The NSW Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) used cloud technology from Genesys to rapidly expand its contact centre capabilities in the wake of the recent bushfire crisis.

The Department, which provides housing services to disadvantaged individuals and families across the state, saw a 281% surge in calls requesting disaster welfare assistance in January following the peak of the crisis on New Year’s Eve.

DCJ had 400 contract centre agents in November and December responsible for answering 66,000 calls per month.

By comparison, on one day in January alone, the Department needed to find accommodation for over 1500 displaced residents, which required taking 1500 incoming calls and making at least 1500 calls to source accommodation.

The Department has helped nearly 8000 bushfire-hit individuals find accommodation since November.

Following the crisis, DCJ needed to quickly ramp up its housing contact centre capacity. The company used the Genesys Engage customer experience application to add 40 new agents and establish a new phone line in less than three hours.

“It was essential our contact centre could manage the increase in enquiries to ensure we could help all those displaced by the fires. We needed to respond quickly to make sure people had a safe place to stay. There is no way we could have done this without cloud technology from Genesys,” said the director of the Department’s housing contact centre, Wendy Keith.

“Using the Genesys Engage platform meant there was no interruption to the service we provided, as it allowed us to respond to enquiries across phone, email and online using the one system. This made the whole process much more efficient and helped us ensure nothing fell through the cracks.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/fizkes