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Thousands of Australians rely on health and support services every day for medical care, employment assistance, and wellbeing. As businesses and government services adapt to hybrid work, these interactions are increasingly taking place over the phone, with 73 per cent of medical professionals experiencing a higher volume of telephone-based consultations since COVID-19.
As a leading, purpose-built collection of health, medical, and employment brands, MedHealth works with the government and private sector businesses to improve outcomes for the entire population. With a significant contact centre footprint, the organisation provides direct and indirect support for people across Australia, including people with illness, disabilities, workplace injuries and job seekers.
Disparate contact centres with inconsistent functionality
MedHealth’s contact centre function is fundamental as it handles high-priority client calls which need to be managed efficiently.
- However, the organisation was managing disparate telephony platforms across six of its core business units, including:
- Three brands – atWork Australia, Cogent, and Ability Access Australia (AAA) – already on separate tenancies of Telstra Genesys Cloud
- UHG – on an on-premises, legacy phone system
- JobAccess – operating with a hunt group call centre function which was becoming out-of-date, and;
- Its internal IT division, which was utilising a skype for business
A result of fast growth and acquisitions which introduced different systems, this inconsistency was sub-optimal for MedHealth as brands operated independently with their own contracts and individual contact centre environments. The management of the technology became increasingly difficult as the organisation grew, with different processes, varying functionality and no universal oversight of their contact centre environment.
There were technical issues with those tenants on the legacy telephony infrastructure —a lack of integration across other software (such as CRM systems), and difficulties routing calls for brands with multiple business units.
COVID-19 also made it challenging to extend the existing functionality to remote working environments. As call volumes increased, MedHealth experienced more dropped calls and difficulties meeting client demand. This was having a direct impact on the customer and employee user experience.
The key challenge was to provide a seamless, integrated and consistent approach with exceptional service but also enable each contact centre to operate separately and securely within the bounds of its individual brand.
A unified and feature-rich omni channel platform with Telstra Contact Centre Genesys Cloud
After a competitive due diligence exercise, MedHealth partnered with Telstra to bring all six contact centres together under one Telstra Contact Centre Genesys Cloud tenancy.
Telstra’s Genesys Cloud service is unique in the region, with Telstra’s fully integrated carrier-grade SIP network. While each contact centre still operates independently, the organisation can now manage them centrally, allowing for simpler administration, ease of scale, and the ability to run holistic reporting across all business unit activities.
Telstra and delivery partner CVT Global worked with MedHealth to design and undertake a phased deployment approach. That started with the organisation’s IT service desk function, which was seamlessly migrated to Genesys Cloud.
“There were six disparate contact centres that were being brought together, but they also had six very different business requirements. The actual duty and style of how they were operating was different, so bringing that under a single structure and approach was quite powerful. We’ve got the ability to leverage how different organisations operate and carry any advantages in functionality from one to another. It’s given us a lot of knowledge about our business and how we can extend functions.”
Andrew Cooper, Technical Operations and Security Manager at UHG (part of MedHealth)
The implementation approach by Telstra and CVT was to bring the business units already on Genesys Cloud into one centralised service. This allowed existing configurations to be retained, while seamlessly adding new functionality. Legacy contact centres were also set up on the Genesys Cloud service, providing full visibility and access to a modern contact centre feature set across all business units.
CVT also trained business units to use intuitive administration functions within Genesys Cloud, so they could make operational changes as required. The business now has the ability to make changes on demand – without being reliant on IT – to support its day-to-day operational requirements. “Our aim was to get the configuration as close to the business as possible, which we’ve achieved, with back-end support provided by IT,” says John Taylor, Group CIO at MedHealth. “That support is now far less than what was previously required. We’ve improved the customer experience, agility and reduced total support costs.”
Call flow routing was simplified, and the API-enabled Genesys Cloud platform was seamlessly integrated with other MedHealth IT systems. MedHealth also took advantage of the Genesys Cloud Quality Management voice recording feature, which helps fulfil security and compliance obligations.
Delivered as a managed service, CVT worked alongside Telstra support teams to provide a critical support and service wrap that caters to MedHealth’s requirements.
“I’ve done a lot of different projects and migrations around the world in my career, and the delivery of this project by Telstra and CVT would have to be one of the best to get a really solid outcome. “CVT honestly exceeded my expectations. The whole implementation was incredibly easy, and they impressed our team at every stage of the process. We had an outcome from start to finish in around three months.”
John Taylor, Group CIO at MedHealth
Making a real business impact with a platform for the future
With Telstra Contact Centre Genesys Cloud, MedHealth’s business is no longer hamstrung by technology. The organisation immediately recognised stability improvements from the Telstra Voice Network, with higher call quality, better reliability, and a significant reduction in calls dropped compared to legacy systems.
Average call waiting times are just 10 percent of what they were before the implementation, as staff can route calls more effectively and more easily handle volume during peak periods.
MedHealth can now focus on more strategic initiatives to achieve sustained future growth. The organisation has already begun building omni-channel capabilities, adding text message engagements across certain brands. It’s also looking to link its contact centre with digital channels, bringing everything together under one platform.
“From a technological perspective, things are much improved,” Cooper continues. “Before, the business couldn’t focus on growth, as we were conscious of what couldn’t be achieved. That’s all been taken away now, and our team can get back to focusing on client outcomes. Where tech was a blocker before, it’s now an enabler, so we’re very happy with how things have turned out.”
