Lifelines for the frontline: How IRC delivers critical customer service and humanitarian aid using Zendesk solutions

Customer service rarely shoulders the burden of life-and-death questions, but that’s not the case for nonprofits serving their clients on the frontlines of conflict and disaster zones. People displaced by wars and disasters must make critical, time-sensitive, and life-altering decisions throughout the arc of a crisis to survive, adapt, and rebuild their lives.

For humanitarian aid services, time is of the essence to ensure useful information and vital resources reach those most in need.

Often, the humanitarian sector faces great challenges in providing reliable and responsive information. Limited resources, dependency on providers at the center, or structural limitations hinder these programs, making them hyper-specific and not scalable.

Leveraging Zendesk technology has helped the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to overcome these barriers. Now a trailblazer in the field, the IRC is scaling at record speed as it breaks new ground in crisis management.

Lightning-fast crisis aid deployment with Zendesk

Aid delayed can mean aid denied in a fast-moving and evolving crisis.

The IRC’s Signpost program is the world’s first scalable approach to community-driven, responsive information platforms. Signpost launched its first project in 2015 when thousands of refugees fleeing from the violence in Syria ended up in Greece.

“To meet them at scale would have required thousands of personnel,” explained Andre Heller, Director of Signpost, in our recent podcast interview. “We were able to do that same work with a very small team…in the end [we were able to reach] 70 percent of the refugee population in Greece.”

Previously, Signpost’s use of incompatible systems made it difficult to communicate and grow effectively. In a strategic move to enhance its operational capacity, the IRC sought the expertise of Zendesk in 2020, deploying our Support, Guide, Messaging, SunCo, and Assist Lite solutions.

Using Zendesk, the team managed two-way communications across social media platforms to help refugees navigate challenging processes. Zendesk is the backbone of the IRC’s omnichannel communication and content management system, supporting more than 30 websites and ticketing systems for over 80 social media channels.

Leveraging Zendesk, Signpost today can deploy its core offerings to any crisis within 48 hours.

Tech for Good: Building an AI-first future with Zendesk innovation

As a Zendesk Tech for Good partner, the IRC’s Signpost program has received nearly $3 million in software donations and pro-bono support from The Zendesk Foundation to increase the scale of its humanitarian work.

“We started this collaboration with Zendesk to find a more scalable approach with the tech, and it really revolutionized our work at Signpost,” said Heller. “It took a program that was very difficult to maintain, not especially scalable, kind of costly, and it transformed it into something that was quite extensible with way better user experiences on all sides.”

Signpost has bold plans for the future that include deploying GenAI and Zendesk QA for AI Agents.

Besides Signpost, Zendesk supports five other IRC programs, donating $1.5 million in grants from the Zendesk Foundation and an estimated $5 million in products to the IRC over the last five years.

IRC leverages Zendesk Sell and Explore solutions for its Phoenix Migrant Welcome Center at the U.S.-Mexico border to facilitate the intake and case management of asylum seekers. Zendesk also helps refugees take steps toward safety through several other IRC initiatives including its Central American Minors (CAM) Hotline, Client Responsiveness Programming, a first-of-its-kind Virtual Reception and Placement (VR&P) program, and its Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO).

Maximizing impact: An award-winning partnership

Powered by Zendesk, Signpost scaled from three countries to 30 in less than four years—a remarkable leap in the nonprofit space.

Since 2015, the IRC has provided an astounding 16.4 million displaced people and refugees with critical, life-saving information and resources using Zendesk solutions. These efforts span 28 countries and 25 languages.

In 2023 alone, the IRC catered to seven million users, supported 200,000 unique end users via Zendesk tickets, and earned a CSAT score of 4.7 out of 5. Additionally, the IRC’s Welcome Center served displaced persons from 102 countries.

Zendesk and IRC were awarded two Engage for Good Halo Awards in 2024 for their outstanding contributions to social impact and emergency response through the Signpost Project.

“There are thousands of programs that look like Signpost, but there’s no kit and tech stack to enable and supersize those things at efficiency,” said Heller. “What we’ve built together with Zendesk is a solution that is valuable and meaningful in the world.”