Emergency & Surge Call Centre
Storm, outage and emergency call handling that scales within minutes - proven on the worst days of the year
Capacity for the day nobody can staff for
Telnet's emergency and surge call centre gives you extra capacity the moment volumes spike - storms, outages, recalls or system failures. Tulip AI answers routine calls instantly at any volume, while trained onshore agents in New Zealand and Australia switch onto your lines within minutes to handle urgent and complex calls.
No business can roster for its worst day. When a storm hits, call volumes can multiply overnight, and the calls that genuinely need a person end up waiting behind thousands asking the same question: what's happening, and when will it be fixed?
We've been the contact centre and call centre behind New Zealand's fault lines for decades. Surge handling isn't a product we bolted on - it's the work we were built for.
Plan Your Surge CoverOf calls handled by AI
During Cyclone Tam
Hold time
For customers in crisis
Agents in 24 hours
Lotto NZ, COVID-19 lockdown
Of NZ households
Covered by fault lines we answer
Three layers of surge capacity
They switch on together, so the routine calls never crowd out the urgent ones.
AI takes the repeat questions
Tulip, our AI voice assistant, answers on the first ring with accurate, consistent outage updates and logs fault reports straight into your systems. It scales to whatever arrives - no roster change required.
Shared agents switch over
Our blended resourcing model means agents are already trained across multiple clients. When your lines spike, they move onto your calls within minutes - not the weeks traditional recruitment would take.
Urgent calls go to people first
Safety issues, vulnerable customers and distressed callers are routed to an agent by your rules, with full context. Everything else is answered without making them wait.
Storm and outage call handling,
on the worst day of the year.
During Cyclone Tam in Auckland, widespread power outages created record-breaking call volumes for utility companies. Tulip handled 33% of all inbound calls - the equivalent of six full-time agents deployed instantly - giving real-time outage updates, logging faults and escalating when necessary.
Customers waited zero seconds. And because AI absorbed the repeat questions, the calls that needed a person reached one faster than they would have on a quiet day.
Our Utility Contact Centre WorkFault reporting, outage updates and restoration information for energy and utility networks.
A dedicated line stood up quickly, with scripted, consistent answers and every contact logged.
Lockdowns, launches and public announcements that send calls "through the roof".
Cover for your own contact centre if your site, systems or team are affected.
An emergency contact centre that doesn't go down with the power
A surge call centre is only useful if it's running when the event hits. Telnet's agents work from home across many locations in New Zealand and Australia, on multi-site infrastructure with redundancy built in, and we run realistic disaster recovery exercises.
Everything runs on ContactSuite, our own contact centre platform, so extra agents see the same knowledge, scripts and customer history as your regular team from their first call.
Our TechnologySurge cover works best alongside everyday cover
Most of our surge clients also use our after-hours answering service or run an inbound call centre with us, so agents already know their customers when an event hits.
Australian organisations can use the same model with onshore Australian agents - see call centre outsourcing in Australia.
And because we only charge per interaction, surge capacity costs almost nothing in a quiet month.
Emergency and surge call centre FAQs
How does Telnet handle storm and outage call surges?
Telnet absorbs surges with three layers at once: Tulip AI answers routine outage and status calls instantly at any volume, a shared pool of trained onshore agents switches onto your lines within minutes, and your escalation rules route urgent faults to people first. During Cyclone Tam, Tulip handled 33% of all inbound calls with zero hold time.
What is an emergency or surge call centre?
An emergency or surge call centre is extra contact centre capacity that switches on when call volumes spike - storms, power outages, product recalls, system failures or sudden public demand. Instead of staffing for your worst day all year, you keep your normal team and Telnet adds the capacity only when it’s needed.
How quickly can Telnet scale up?
AI capacity is immediate: Tulip scales to whatever arrives. Agent capacity comes from our shared resourcing model, where trained agents move onto your lines within minutes. For new programmes we’ve moved fast too - we stood up 35 agents in 24 hours for Lotto NZ when COVID-19 lockdown closed its retail outlets.
What is an AI voice assistant and when does it hand over to a person?
An AI voice assistant answers phone calls and holds a natural spoken conversation to resolve routine requests. In an outage, Tulip gives accurate updates and logs faults; it reads urgency and sentiment and transfers to a human agent - with full context - for safety issues, vulnerable customers or anything it shouldn’t handle.
Is Telnet's contact centre onshore?
Yes - 100% onshore, with agents in New Zealand and Australia and no offshoring. Our home-based agent network across many locations, plus multi-site operations and regular disaster recovery exercises, means a local event doesn’t take our contact centre offline.
How much does surge capacity cost?
You pay for the interactions we handle, not for seats sitting idle between events. Telnet’s blended, pay-per-interaction model means surge cover costs little in a quiet month and scales with volume when something happens. Talk to us for pricing based on your typical and peak volumes.
Which organisations use Telnet for emergency call handling?
Telnet is the contact centre partner to more than half of New Zealand’s electricity networks, including Vector since 1999, and handles fault lines for around three-quarters of New Zealand households. We also support fuel and EV charging networks, government agencies and not-for-profits.
Be ready before the next storm
Tell us your normal and peak volumes. We'll show you how AI and shared agents would carry your next surge.
Talk to Us