How Ausmed scaled healthcare support with AI Voice Agent (without adding headcount)
Before AI Voice Agent, Ausmed's small customer experience team manually handled thousands of weekly support requests from healthcare professionals across Australia. When one team member went on maternity leave and another reduced their hours, the team faced a short-term capacity gap at a time when demand wasn’t slowing down. Rather than rushing into a lengthy hiring and training process, Michelle Wicky, Chief Customer Officer at Ausmed, saw an opportunity to test an AI solution that could support the team immediately.
“Training an AI Voice Agent felt a million times faster than training a human to answer customer questions and understand processes. It didn’t make sense for me to bring in additional headcount when I could pivot to an AI agent instead.”
The challenge
Ausmed has been helping healthcare professionals stay current with their training since 1987. Today, the platform serves over 250,000 healthcare workers across Australia, delivering continuing education and compliance support to hospitals, aged care facilities, and individual practitioners.
With such a vital mission, every support interaction matters. When healthcare professionals need help accessing training materials or resolving account issues, they expect fast, reliable service around the clock.
Michelle’s team knew that now was the time to explore innovative ways AI could give them a competitive edge and offer the 24-hour assistance their customers wanted.
The turning point
When the capacity gap opened up, Michelle focused on maintaining service continuity without leaning on short-term fixes. Instead of immediately adding temporary coverage, she explored how Aircall could support the team and protect the customer experience.
The solution
Michelle had learned about Aircall’s AI Voice Agent months prior but was originally apprehensive about adopting the tool.
“What held me back was the unknown. I wasn’t sure what would happen to our metrics and how it would affect our customers,” says Michelle. “But I saw Aircall pushing forward in this space and that gave me confidence to dip my toe with a flexible soft launch and test my concerns.”
AI Voice Agent allowed Michelle the option to design the rollout with customer choice in mind. Rather than forcing callers into an AI-only experience, Ausmed introduced their voice agent, Ozzy, as an option. The implementation followed a deliberate two-phase approach.
First, they activated Ozzy only during after-hours calls for a one-month period. This low-risk testing ground let them measure quality and customer acceptance without impacting peak service times.
Phase two brought Ozzy into business hours but with a crucial difference. When customers called, they were given an option: speak with Ozzy now, or wait for a human agent. "Giving them that choice helped us understand where the real appetite was," Michelle says.
Aircall's AI Voice Agent further appealed to Michelle because it integrated seamlessly with the HubSpot CRM that Ausmed already relied on. The AI summaries that synced automatically to HubSpot were invaluable to her team.
"If someone is off for the day or working on a complex ticket, another team member can step in and quickly catch up on what happened with AI summaries. That's been instrumental in the efficiency we're finding."
The results
The numbers exceeded expectations. Even when given a direct choice between AI and human support, roughly 20% of callers consistently chose Ozzy. That number has held steady for six months, proving genuine customer acceptance.
Key outcomes:
20% of calls voluntarily deflected to AI Voice Agent
Maintained service levels during staff leave without temporary hiring
Maintained Ausmed’s green zone performance standard, keeping missed calls below 10% and returning all calls within 90 minutes
Faster team coverage through AI call summaries in HubSpot
"We've been sitting very comfortably under our KPI target - that’s a great thing! We've been heavily green for months, which is really exciting and shows us how efficient AI Voice Agent has been."
The qualitative impact mattered just as much. Customer satisfaction didn't drop. Complaint rates didn't rise. Customers continue to actively choose the AI option, which serves as a powerful validation that the technology is meeting their needs.
For the support team, the change wasn't about replacement, but evolution.
"We made it clear that we would use AI as a robust, capacity-driven team member. We weren't going to replace existing people. We were going to give them time for more complex tasks and help them build new skill sets."
In practice, this meant the team shifted into higher-value roles, including training the AI, curating knowledge, and handling more complex customer issues. When prospective customers now ask about Ausmed's support capabilities, Michelle can confidently cite rapid response rates and high answer rates; competitive advantages that help close deals.
Looking ahead
Ausmed continues to refine how AI and human agents work together. The opt-in model remains, but Michelle is exploring additional use cases where Ozzy can provide value without compromising the personal touch healthcare professionals expect.
"I was on a call recently with an organisation looking to come on board," Michelle recalls. "They asked about our support response times, and it was fantastic to share our key metrics. They said, 'Wow, that's fast.' That performance level gets noticed even in the first conversation with a potential customer."
With AI handling routine queries efficiently and HubSpot integration ensuring no context is lost, Ausmed has built a support infrastructure that scales with demand rather than headcount.
Advice to others
Michelle's message to peers considering AI is direct: Stop planning and start testing.
"I think a lot of customers in our industry could be embracing AI more to make their jobs more efficient without losing quality. Give it a go. Test it out. Do a soft launch. If you're not doing this, you're at the back of the race."
Her practical advice is to start small, measure everything, and expand based on evidence. "We turned on our voice agent after-hours first. Not only did it give customers a chance to get queries resolved, but it was also a smaller cohort that served as a good testing space. Look at the data, then make your next choices from there."
Ready to scale your support without scaling your team? Discover how Aircall's AI Voice Agent can help you deliver faster service while empowering your team to focus on what matters most.