The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) has slashed the time it takes to respond to animal cruelty cases reported online from days down to a matter of minutes, by enabling people to report cases through the RSPCA website after investing in advanced customer service technology from Eptica.

The world’s oldest and largest animal welfare charity is using Eptica’s leading software to cut the average response times to reports of animal cruelty online from two days to just 21 minutes. Enquiries sent through the RSPCA website are now automatically scanned, prioritised and sent through to the right people to action. With a 10 strong team working exclusively 24/7 on helping animals at risk, the time the RSPCA has saved in processing online enquiries means they can now investigate more cases and ultimately save the lives of more animals.

When the footage of Anne the circus elephant’s story emerged on YouTube in March this year, the RSPCA received hundreds of enquiries through its website from animal lovers wanting to know what the charity was doing to help. The new RSPCA service enabled it to respond promptly to all these queries and keep people up to date with the charity’s achievements as the elephant’s move to Longleat Safari Park was secured.

Veronica Morrison, Information and Advice Manager at the RSPCA explained: "Over the last few years we’ve seen a massive growth in the number of people contacting us online. Eptica’s technology allows us to investigate and process all the cases reported on our website, quickly and efficiently. Being able to better manage the thousands of enquiries we receive every year helps us to save more animals. It’s as simple as that!"

When the charity launched PetRetreat – its advice and pet fostering service– it received more than 900 online applications from potential foster families in the first month alone. Eptica’s software helped filter and distribute those applications, flagging where additional information was required so the RSPCA team could go back to potential fosterers while they were fully engaged with the initiative. This allowed the RSPCA to speed up the process of vetting applicants and place animals within a caring environment much quicker.

The RSPCA is also regularly contacted for more general pet health and behavioural advice. Since deploying the Eptica Email Management solution in January, the online response times for veterinary advice has fallen from seven days to two hours, and for pet care and behavioural advice it has plummeted from 32 days to less than one hour.

Dee Roche, European Marketing Director at Eptica, added: "The RSPCA is a fantastic organisation that fulfils a very important role in our society. It’s great to see the organisation harnessing the power of Web customer service technology to connect with supporters and ultimately save more animals in need."

The RSPCA has been looking out for animals since 1824. In its 170 branches, staff and countless volunteers work with endless energy and dedication to look after the tens of thousands of animals that come into its care every year. In 2010 alone the charity investigated 159,686 cruelty complaints and collected and rescued 130,033 animals.