Case Study
October 9, 2025

Quitline Victoria Boosts Engagement with AI Outreach

In Australia, 21,000 people die every year from smoking-related diseases. Quitline Victoria is looking to improve this statistic.

Quitline offers trained counsellors to help and support those who want to quit smoking. Studies show Quitline dramatically increases a person’s chances of stopping smoking. Quitline is a phone-based service and so engagement is an incredibly important metric. The more people that interact with Quitline, the more impact counsellors can have. That’s why Quitline was intrigued by our AI Agents ability to call people at scale with conversational AI.

Completion rates and re-engagement with the Quitline programme have increased since using AI Agent. With AI Agents, Quitline sees answer rates of 62%, completion rates of 18% and re-engagement rates of 10%. Here is the story of how Quitline is helping people quit smoking with us.

Quitline wanted to survey clients and re-engage with lapsed quitters. Quitline’s major funder, Victoria Health, encouraged trying new technologies to achieve this mission. Quitline had surveyed clients before but the surveys asked linear questions and were close-ended.

Quitline partnered with us to create a survey with open-ended answers and the goal of increasing completion rates. The aim was to try and find out who needed more support in their quitting journey.

“One of the key measures we’re focused on is completion rates. How many people could complete a survey? If we call someone and they say they’re not smoking, that’s fine,” says Lindsay Whelan, Manager at Quitline. “But if we don’t get a hold of them, the assumption is, from a valuation perspective, that they’ve potentially gone back to smoking or are still smoking. It’s challenging.”

Our AI Agent promised to increase survey completion rates and reach out to more clients in a much shorter time period.

Having phone calls from Ai Agents appear like spam was a key concern for Quitline. We alleviated this concern by introducing Quitline to a tried-and-tested workflow. Before contact, clients receive an SMS explaining they will receive a call from Quitline’s digital helper, ‘Matilda’. The SMS provides context and gives clients the option of calling Quitline directly with any concerns. AI agent, ‘Matilda’, understands if a call is being questioned as spam. ‘Matilda’ provides callers with reassurance and gives clients the option to call Quitline’s direct line.

The team at Quitline will continue to use ‘Matilda’ and work closely with us to make constant improvements. Both teams meet weekly to analyse data and plan changes. “We’ve been able to make tweaks and changes along the journey to ensure that we’re improving. Each time we have made a subtle change we have seen a slight increase in the completion rate.”

Quitline is now looking to a future where AI can be used in other aspects of the business. Lindsay explains, “There are greater possibilities now that we understand the technology, how it works and how intuitive it actually is. We’ll be doing a lot more thinking about ways that we can use AI Agents. Not just for reengagement, but other aspects of the business as well.”

“They said we could get completion rates between the 20 and 30% mark and I thought that was overestimated and more of a selling point,” says Lindsay. “We’ve had an 18.5% full completion rate so far!”

Quitline has also seen 10% of people they called using ‘Matilda’ re-engage with counsellors. “It’s been a great result for the business, but also for the client themselves.  Smoking is a chronic relapsing condition and the more quit attempts people make, the more likely they are to stay quit for good,” says Lindsay.

results that


speak for themselves

AI Answer Rate
62%

Quitline achieved 62% answer rate with MaxContact

Completion
18%

18% call completion rate so far with AI Agent

Engagement
10%

Increased engagement rate to 10% - driving business results

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