Why Wildlife Victoria Trusts Natterbox to Bring AI to Life-and-Death Calls

A Partnership Built to Last

Wildlife Victoria has partnered with Natterbox since 2014. Across more than a decade, the relationship has endured not just because of the technology, but because Natterbox has taken the time to understand Wildlife Victoria’s business, its challenges, and how those needs have evolved.

“Technology is the absolute backbone of Wildlife Victoria – we simply could not do the work we do in our emergency response service without it.” – Lisa Palma, CEO & Executive Director

That understanding matters because Wildlife Victoria’s call volume is uniquely complex: last year alone, the organization received calls relating to 500 different species, spanning hundreds of thousands of cases. Staffed 24/7, operators are often juggling multiple calls at once — each one a different animal, in a different scenario, requiring different advice.

Challenge

Wildlife Victoria initially faced a hurdle with an outdated legacy PBX phone system that lacked the necessary flexibility and integration with their cloud-based Salesforce platform. Even after their foundational Natterbox implementation, a significant operational challenge persisted in their emergency response: the inefficient and time-consuming process for identifying injured animals. Operators struggled to identify species based on verbal descriptions alone. If identification failed, the public was asked to send photos via email, which was a cumbersome process:

• The email exchange could take ten minutes or more.
• It was often plagued by technical difficulties, such as misspelled emails or attachment issues
• The process frequently required a second or even third follow-up call to conclude a single case, essentially “doubling up on time needed”.

This inefficiency strained their limited resources and impacted their ability to respond swiftly to a growing number of incidents.

Solution

Wildlife Victoria initially transitioned from their legacy PBX to the Natterbox Cloud PBX & Contact Centre, which provided a scalable telephony system, CTI, call recording, and seamless integration with their Salesforce platform.

“We needed a system that we could be scaled easily in the case of an emergency and Natterbox offered a customized cloud-based communications solution to meet the increasing demands on our emergency phone service. Full integration with our Salesforce instance was a huge contributing factor in selecting Natterbox as our telephony provider.” – Oscar Formoso, Head of Emergency Response Service

Building on this foundation, they implemented Natterbox Remote Assist to overcome the animal identification bottleneck. The primary drivers for adopting Remote Assist were its efficiency, ease of use, and seamless integration.

The Remote Assist solution streamlined the workflow by:

• Automating SMS for Video Calls: Operators can send a link for an instant video call directly to the caller via SMS with just two clicks inside the Salesforce case.
• Integrated Visual Assessment: The link launches a video stream from the caller’s phone, giving the operator immediate “eyes on the ground” to visually assess the animal’s injury, mobility, and surroundings.
• Screenshot Capabilities: Operators can capture and store time-stamped screenshots directly against the case in Salesforce for documenting potential animal cruelty cases or pinpointing a location on long roads for rescuers.

This solution allows for faster, more accurate species identification, especially for challenging cases like fledgling birds during the peak season.

“We were very impressed with the flow chart methodology that Natterbox used to develop our call policies. We needed something that could help us control costs and wanted to be able to relocate our call center with minimal effort. Natterbox’s comprehensive customized reporting has also allowed us to improve our call center management and operational effectiveness.” Oscar Formoso, Head of Emergency Response Service

Results

The implementation of Remote Assist has immediately and significantly impacted operations.

Operational Efficiency & Time Savings

• Wildlife Victoria estimates they are saving 8 to 10 minutes per case that utilizes Remote Assist.
• The previous time-consuming, multi-call email process is replaced by a single, efficient interaction.
• By eliminating the need for email-based photo exchanges, the critical “time between calls” (previously seven minutes) is expected to decrease substantially.
• Removing the need for a second call to conclude the case is expected to significantly improve their key performance indicators and enhance overall operational efficiency.

User Experience:

• Positive public feedback has been “overwhelmingly positive,” with no concerns raised about the tool’s ease of use, contrasting sharply with the frustration of the previous email process.
• Positive staff adoption has been seamless, with newer employees readily integrating the tool into their workflows and recognizing its benefits.

Impact on Outcomes:

• The ability to get an instant visual assessment enables faster, more accurate initial assessments and triage, leading to improved animal outcomes.
• The tool frees up valuable operator time, allowing the small team to handle more calls and help more animals faster..

Looking to the future

Wildlife Victoria is optimistic that the true impact of Remote Assist will be fully realized during their high-stress peak spring season, where they can experience potentially over 1,000 daily calls.

Beyond Remote Assist, Wildlife Victoria is now looking toward AI as the next stage of the partnership – particularly for initial call triage, where tone and empathy are critical. Looking ahead, Wildlife Victoria is encouraged by Natterbox’s AI roadmap and its alignment with how the organization operates

“The state AI is now, particularly at that initial triage point – the AI Agent can demonstrate the empathy, the tone, the compassion and the care that we expect our staff will impart onto callers. Ensuring that AI can adapt to suit our organisation’s tone and style is very important – without that, adoption would be very difficult. But the ability to tailor AI to suit our needs is extremely attractive for us now. There is no reason as not-for-profits that we can’t utilise technology out there and treat ourselves like a business – because bottom line, if we’re more efficient, we’re getting more help to those we’re there to serve.” – Lisa Palma, CEO & Executive Director

Looking ahead, Wildlife Victoria is encouraged by Natterbox’s AI roadmap and its alignment with how the organization operates:

“From what we’ve seen of the Natterbox roadmap on AI, it very much aligns with how we run our business, and we’re very much looking forward to further utilising AI with Natterbox into the future. We also have a level of comfort that any ideas or suggestions we may have for the roadmap will be listened to and taken on board. We’re a long-standing customer, and we can’t see that changing.” – Lisa Palma, CEO & Executive Director

They are also continuing to explore new strategic use cases, such as integrating Remote Assist training into staff onboarding.

Wildlife Victoria recommends Natterbox to other not-for-profits due to its efficiency, ease of use, customizability – and, increasingly, its responsible approach to AI.

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