GALOP

Windsor Provides Comms Support for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Anti-Violence Charity

The Customer

GALOP is the UK’s LGBTQ+ anti-abuse charity, specialising in supporting victims and survivors of all forms of abuse, violence and hate crimes. The charity runs three national support helplines: one for LGBTQ+ victims and survivors of domestic abuse, one for LGBTQ+ people who have experienced hate crime, and the other for victims and survivors of so-called conversion therapies and practices.

The Challenge

Keeping helpline numbers available and easy to manage is vital for Galop, ensuring that agents are easily reachable when needed. So, a reliable communications system has always been high on its agenda. As an existing Windsor Telecom customer, during its regular review in 2022, GALOP mentioned that it wanted to enhance its current communications solution and incorporate further functionality.

The GALOP team never adopted some of the advanced features of the previous system, and therefore wanted a less complex system that would also provide anonymity for callers, to ease any concerns they had about personal information being stored.

Windsor quickly understood that maintaining the three helpline numbers’ availability was paramount, as was adding in the ability to hide the caller’s identity to ensure anonymity of the calls.

The Solution

Windsor scrutinised GALOP’s call traffic… identifying that the charity was sometimes going over its allowance and therefore being charged overage costs. Thankfully, these allowances could be quickly increased to prevent future charges.

As part of the system upgrade, Windsor Telecom provided training using a ‘train-the-trainer model’ into managers and team leaders and making sure everyone was completely comfortable using the phone system so every call could be focused purely on the person in need.

The Results

Today, Galop has an updated phone system that provides:
•  Anonymous caller ID for all incoming calls, guaranteeing a safe place to talk
•  A thoroughly refreshed User Interface for calls, removing unused features to ensure ease-of-use for all colleagues and volunteers
•  Sufficient traffic allowance to ensure they never have to pay additional charges for calls
•  A 10% cost saving, providing an enhanced return on investment

“The Team at Galop has enjoyed a trusted relationship with Windsor Telecom for over 15 years now. They really care about what we’re trying to achieve for our LGBT+ community, continually providing cost-effective improvements that make it even easier for us to answer every call. Plus, the addition of hiding our callers’ numbers means that everyone calling knows they have a safe place to talk, which is everything we’re looking to achieve through our helplines.”

– GALOP