The National Response Center of the Italian Red Cross (CRI) has a new software suite to support citizens' requests for assistance. The call handling platform reorganized the call answering, recording, and call handling processes, rationalizing the entire system.
The call handling platform, developed by Beta 80 Group, was used to improve customer service, with a special focus on the elderly and the frail, enhancing the overall CRI services through better management and monitoring of data.
A better system to respond to citizen needs
The Italian Red Cross' National Response Center receives calls from the entire nation, at the toll-free number 800 065 510, which will soon transition to public number 1520, assigned by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies. Calls have increased exponentially during the months of lockdown and for the duration of the health emergency.
CRI's mission, with the support of Beta 80 Group, was to create a complete infrastructure, capable of connecting and coordinating the National Response Center with the Regional Centers and the 700 Territorial Committees.
This new call management system unified a wide range of different services: telephone assistance, psychological support, home visits, and simple request for information. It answers all types of citizens' requests, assessing them and then transferring them to the most appropriate committees on the territory.
Beta 80 Group platform for the Italian Red Cross
Beta 80 Group has extensive experience in the organization and set up of emergency PSAPs, having worked on 112 and level II PSAPs and EOC in Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.
This project, however, is unique. The National Response Center covers the most diverse requests and therefore needed a rational system to collect a wide range of information and link the request to the territory and adequate resources.
The CRI is an organization made up of many autonomous committees, each different in terms of resources, size, and activities. It was therefore necessary to implement a dynamic map of the services so that the system could easily find the most appropriate one for each request.
Another particularly complex point was the call filter. The operator has identified the request and note details not needed in run-of-the-mill emergency PSAPs. These notes are vital however, for the territorial committee that performs the service (for example, in the case of a request for a home shopping, the presence of food allergies or intolerances in the family unit).
The design and development of the platform took about a year and a lot of time was dedicated to the testing phase, carried out at ten pilot committees.
The new system has improved the collection and archiving of data, eliminating most of the paper files and strengthening the security and privacy of citizens' data.
The result is a software platform able to manage the information and services of each area and which allows the Committees and Volunteers of the CRI to do their work in the best possible way.
Volunteer Associations: the Digital Transformation
This new methodology is in line with the digital transformation paradigm; a shared, secure and paperless system that improves the activities and operations of Associations and Volunteers.
But the benefits don't stop there. By aggregating and orchestrating data from the system, it will be possible to predict trends and needs through analytics. This kind of information will allow, for example, to prepare for any spikes in requests or to allocate resources and donations in the right hands, at the right time.
The goal is to have a unique tool, able to analyze dynamics and trends, correlate them and find the most effective tools to respond to them.
