Case Study: The YMCA streamlines communication across organisation

The YMCA, also known as The Y, invested in digital during the pandemic to consolidate its platforms and provide a better experience for customers.

Digital Nation Australia spoke to Shane Riddle, general manager for technology and strategy at YMCA Victoria about the organisation’s digital transformation journey, and their investment in Avaya’s communication and collaboration technologies.

According to Riddle, “We looked at various vendors and we felt that Avaya and the Avaya Cloud Office actually fitted what it was that we were looking to achieve as an organisation. It gave us the flexibility of being an online platform, as well as delivering all the functions that we needed to ensure that our team could collaborate efficiently.”

The solution offered flexibility to the Y as it streamlined communication across the organisation he said.

“It allowed us to connect to our teams, as well as the community, off just the one platform.”

Using the Avaya toolkit, the Y has improved its resource allocation in its facilities, such as improving the booking process of swimming lessons at its swim centres, and reducing administration requirements for staff.

The YMCA have also developed an organisational directory, which Riddle describes as a “game changer”.

“We did struggle previously in creating a directory that was across the whole organisation. For the ability to transfer a call from one business unit to another, typically, what we had historically was each business unit had their own platform. So visibility of people within other business units, wasn't as easy as one would think,” he said.

“The introduction of the Avaya platform allowed us to create that one directory and then to transfer calls or create communication across the organisation, fairly seamlessly.”

The results of the roll-out not only affect the customer experience, but have largely improved employee experience by freeing up time for staff said Riddle.

“It allows them to focus on our mission and on our customers and engaging with them rather than trying to work through and identify the correct person to put that customer in contact with using our legacy systems.”