Crisis Hotline Support. Operational Within 48 Hours.
When a crisis hits, your customers need somewhere to call. Forrest Contact provides rapid-deployment inbound hotline services for organisations facing a data breach, product recall, natural disaster or business continuity event.
A crisis is not the time to be scrambling for a contact centre solution. Your customers are anxious, the media may be watching and your reputation is on the line. Every unanswered call makes the situation worse.
Forrest Contact can stand up a fully staffed, professionally managed crisis hotline within 48 hours – giving your customers a trusted point of contact and giving your organisation the capacity to respond at scale, quickly and calmly.
Facing A Crisis Right Now?
Call us directly or email, we can have a crisis hotline operational within 48 hours.
Crisis Types We Support
Our crisis hotline service is designed to respond to four primary crisis scenarios:
Data Breach
When customer data has been compromised, people want to
know what happened, what information was affected and what you’re doing about it. Our agents are briefed on your incident specifics, trained on your approved messaging and able to handle high volumes of distressed inbound calls professionally, empathetically and consistently. We help you maintain control of the narrative while keeping your customers informed.
Product Recall
A product recall requires rapid, clear communication to a potentially large customer base. Our hotline team handles inbound enquiries from affected customers – providing information about the recall, guiding customers through the return or replacement process, and logging all interactions for your records. We reduce the burden on your internal team at exactly the time when they are under the most pressure.
Natural Disaster
Floods, fires, storms and other natural disasters can simultaneously affect your operations and your customers. We provide inbound support for organisations that need to field calls from affected customers, manage service disruption enquiries or coordinate community assistance programmes – freeing your team to focus on operational response while we handle the communications.
IT Outage & Business Continuity
When a system failure, cyber incident or operational disruption takes your services offline, customers will call. Our business continuity hotline service handles the inbound volume – acknowledging the issue, providing status updates as they become available, managing expectations and escalating urgent cases according to your protocols. We keep your customers informed so your IT and operations teams can focus on resolution.
How We Stand Up a Crisis Hotline
We understand that in a crisis, time is the most critical factor. Our rapid deployment process is designed to get a professional, fully briefed hotline operational as quickly as possible.
Initial Briefing
Day 1
You contact us and we schedule an urgent briefing call. We gather the essential information: what has happened, what your customers are likely to ask, what your approved responses are and what outcomes each call should achieve. We also agree on call flows, escalation protocols and how we’ll handle cases that require your direct involvement.
Agent Briefing & Setup
Day 1–2
Our team is briefed on your situation, your brand voice and your approved messaging. Call flows and scripts are developed and signed off by you. Our technology platform is configured and tested. All of this happens in parallel to compress the timeline.
Hotline Goes Live
Within 48 Hours
Your dedicated crisis hotline number is active and staffed by trained agents ready to receive calls. You receive real-time reporting on call volumes, key themes emerging from calls and any escalations requiring your attention.
Ongoing Management & Wind-Down
We manage the hotline for as long as it is needed – typically days to weeks depending on the nature of the crisis. As call volumes subside, we scale back accordingly. A full call record and outcome report is provided at close.
Why Forrest Contact for Crisis Support
Speed of Deployment
Most contact centre providers require weeks of setup. We can have a briefed, staffed and operational hotline running within 48 hours of engagement.
Extended Hours If Required
Our standard operating hours cover the business day. Where the nature of the crisis requires it, we can extend coverage beyond standard hours. We’ll work with you to define the coverage model your situation demands.
100% Australian-Based Team
All calls are handled by our locally based agents. No offshore routing, no language barriers, no cultural misalignment. Your customers speak to someone who understands them, at a time when that matters most.
Transparent Reporting Throughout
You receive real-time visibility into call volumes, call themes and outcomes throughout the hotline operation. This data is often critical for your own incident anagement, regulatory reporting and post-crisis review.
Professionally Managed Under Pressure
Crisis calls are often emotionally charged. Our agents are trained to handle distressed callers with empathy and professionalism - de-escalating tension, providing clear information and leaving customers feeling heard and helped.
Short-Term Commitment
Crisis hotlines are inherently temporary. We do not require long-term contracts for crisis support - you engage us for the duration of the incident, and we scale back and close the service when it is no longer needed.
Facing A Crisis Right Now?
Call us directly or email, we can have a crisis hotline operational within 48 hours.
Planning Ahead? Let's Talk.
Many organisations engage us before a crisis occurs. Establishing a relationship, agreeing on protocols and ensuring that if something goes wrong, the response is already planned. If you’d like to discuss how Forrest Contact can be part of your crisis preparedness planning, we’d welcome the conversation.