January 2007
In January 2007, as bushfires inched closer to Kosciusko National Park’s alpine village, Thredbo, AHL’s local Rydges Hotel and lodges were forced by authorities to evacuate guests.
While the fire-fighters gallantly battled the flames, local business personnel held their breath to learn of the town’s fate and prepared themselves for the second stage of evacuation; withdrawing all non-essential staff.
Categorised as “non-essential” were AHL’s 10 person call centre team. Despite no guests on site, the call centre experienced a high volume of telephone traffic with inquiries about the fires, ramifications for future reservations and (following close media attention) calls from concerned family and friends asking about residents, guests and employees.
Leaving public enquiries unanswered was not an option to AHL, so alternative measures needed to be put in place at a critical pace.
AHL turned to its technology partner, IMC Communications to quickly establish a reliable back up call centre site in Jindabyne, approximately 30 kilometres from Thredbo.
Within two days of getting the first call from AHL, IMC commenced (in Sydney) and completed (in Jindabyne) the task of sourcing and building a disaster recovery solution.
Cisco Unified Communications IP telephony solution was selected because it:
• Easily integrates with an existing LAN
• Offers remote access options for all staff with a PC
• Facilitates seamless relocation of phone extensions
• Enables streamlined business processes
• Enables timely deployment
Once the IMC team carefully plotted the features, equipment components and installation process, they drove from Sydney to Jindabyne. Upon arrival, the team spent the night working tirelessly to configure the new system consisting of phones, routers, and switches to allow the Thredbo PABX system to be diverted to the Cisco IP telephony system in Jindabyne at the touch of a button.
Located in AHL’s Jindabyne ticket office and tourist information centre the new call centre easily accommodates eight team members per shift on site and Cisco’s IP telephony solution easily facilitates any number of operators from remote locations.
“The Jindabyne site is AHL’s first Cisco IP telephony investment,” said Matt Dixon, Sales Director at IMC Communications. “The greatest challenge for us in this case was to configure the solution to mimic the previous PABX system in Thredbo so the call centre operations could easily resume work in the new site with little staff training. This involved setting up similar call handling; hold music functions, voice mail and call queuing.”
Thankfully, the fire-fighters triumphed before Thredbo had to be totally evacuated. However, AHL’s disaster recovery call centre had been primed, tested and was ready to function fully in a moment’s notice whatever the scenario.
“This was the third time bushfires have been so close to the town in recent years,” said Steve Cronan, IT Manager, Kosciusko Thredbo Pty. Ltd. “The effects of harsh conditions in both summer and winter go with the territory and so back up alternatives should always be considered by any Thredbo operation. For this reason, our Jindabyne call centre has been maintained as a permanent disaster recovery site.”
