In a world where crises crop up at the speed of a post on X, humanitarian aid has to move faster.

For most customer service agents, a bad day might mean a lost package or a botched refund. But for the humanitarian workers at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a delayed answer can mean the difference between life and death.

Imagine a mother fleeing violence in Syria, standing on a dock in Greece with no idea which ferry is safe. Or a family separated at the US-Mexico border, desperate for one piece of paperwork before sundown. These are not routine inquiries. They are critical, time-sensitive, life-altering decisions.

In such situations, aid delayed is aid denied.

For years, the humanitarian sector struggled to keep up. Aid was often delayed because information was locked in silos. Programs were hyper-specific, fragile, and impossible to scale.

Leveraging Zendesk technology helped the 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.

The birth of Signpost

In 2015, the IRC launched a radical experiment called Signpost. When thousands of refugees from Syria landed in Greece, the IRC realized that meeting them face-to-face would require thousands of personnel. They didn’t have that luxury.

Instead, they created a digital bridge to reach people at scale.

Using social media and a tiny team, they answered questions in real time: Where is safe water? Which borders are open? How do I register my child for asylum? 

By the end of the operation, they had reached 70% of the refugee population in Greece – without ever deploying a traditional army of caseworkers.

But the technology holding that bridge together was fragile. Signpost relied on incompatible systems that made communication clunky and growth nearly impossible.

The turning point
In 2020, the IRC made a strategic bet. They partnered with Zendesk – not as a software vendor, but as a “Tech for Good” ally. The Zendesk Foundation provided nearly US$3 million in software donations and pro-bono support.

The results were significant. A small team in a conflict zone could now manage two-way conversations across 80 social media channels and 30 websites from a single pane of glass.

Today, Signpost can deploy its core offerings to any crisis across the globe within 48 hours.

When information used to be an afterthought – be it a flood in Bangladesh, an earthquake in Turkey, or new displacement at the war borders – the IRC can now set up a fully functional, multilingual, omnichannel information hub in two days.

That speed has allowed the IRC to scale from three countries to thirty in less than four years – a staggering leap in the nonprofit world.

The technology is impressive, but its impact is deeply human:

  • 16.4 million displaced people have received life-saving information since 2015.
  • In 2023 alone, the IRC served 7 million users and supported 200,000 unique end users through Zendesk tickets.
  • They achieved a CSAT score of 4.7 out of 5 – a rating most commercial companies would envy, let alone crisis zones.

Doing more good with technology
The IRC isn’t stopping. It is now deploying GenAI and Zendesk QA for AI Agents to respond even faster, freeing up human agents for the most complex and urgent cases.

Andre Heller, Director of Signpost, puts it plainly: “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. What we’ve built together with Zendesk is a solution that is valuable and meaningful in the world.”

In 2024, the Signpost project earned two Engage for Good Halo Awards – not for innovation alone, but for real-world impact on people in crises.

IRC’s Center for Economic Opportunity (IRC-CEO), the lending arm of the organization, also uses the Zendesk Resolution platform to scale support as demand for affordable credit grows.

Borrowing with dignity

IRC-CEO expands access to credit for refugees, other newcomers, and low-income communities. Working with trusted local partners, the organization facilitates access to flexible consumer and micro-enterprise loans.

As demand surged, IRC-CEO needed to scale support to ensure borrowers could navigate a complex financial system with clarity and confidence.

By unifying communications, leveraging Zendesk AI, and strengthening self-service, IRC-CEO resolves 76% of 2,000 monthly tickets in a single touch — expanding financial access while preserving trust, dignity, and human connection.

Since onboarding Zendesk in 2022, IRC-CEO has delivered about $30 million of the $43 million it has deployed over its entire history. This rapid acceleration reflected both rising demand and expanded reach, and Zendesk AI helped the organization realize this huge increase in scale without incurring more capital.

“The volume and complexity of our clients’ inquiries are increasing while our resources are not,” explained Terrence Chan, Information Systems Manager, IRC-CEO. “We needed to find a way to amplify our staff’s capacity without sacrificing the quality of our service. We have not increased our headcount — even though our servicing team is just three agents and our volume continues to grow.”

With Zendesk, IRC-CEO consolidated support into a centralized omnichannel platform, bringing every borrower touchpoint — across email, phone, chat, text, and social messaging — into a unified workspace.

Meanwhile, Zendesk AI Copilot helps agents, regardless of their first language, work faster and communicate more clearly and consistently, especially in sensitive situations. With Copilot’s tone shift feature, agents can instantly refine the voice of their written responses.

The IRC and Zendesk have shown that the right technology can scale service and crisis care. Answering a question quickly resolves more than just a ticket; it can help someone find safety and support, or even save a life.