Bath, UK, December, 2022: Gradwell are pleased to continue supporting An0 Technologies and The Aimar Foundation to deliver the annual ‘Crisis at Christmas’ event, enabling essential communications services for the charity, Crisis UK, during Christmas.
‘Crisis at Christmas’ is an annual event organised by Crisis UK, where the charity utilise unused hotels, schools and colleges to provide accommodation and access to support services for people struggling with homelessness. Gradwell are pleased to continue supporting this initiative this Christmas to provide ‘Crisis at Christmas’ guests with access to reliable communications technology.
The Aimar Foundation has been supporting Crisis UK with technology solutions and operations for their Christmas event since 2008. Together with Gradwell and An0 Technology, a partnership was formed to provide reliable telephony and infrastructure, ensuring that Crisis volunteers can communicate internally, with venues and suppliers and most importantly, with homeless people needing support over the Christmas period.
During ‘Crisis at Christmas’, Crisis UK provide services for guests to contact friends, family, and essential support services. Prior to arriving at an event venue, the guests contact a Crisis UK call centre to report themselves as homeless and request support. As such, the communications technology behind these services is critical to ensuring that the charity can provide the help that these people need.
The charity needed to ensure that as the event grew, hosting more guests and managing more venues, the communication and infrastructure services could cope with the demand. In addition, it is essential that technical support is available over the Christmas period to maintain maximum availability of the call centre services both for event guests, and the call centre volunteers.
“With an event such as this, there were a host of challenges and things that could go wrong, so ensuring that the phone systems all worked reliably was crucial, and this was one less thing we had to worry about on the day”
The partnership of the three organisations provides everything needed to cover all communications technology for the events and the call centre. This includes hosting infrastructure, telephone numbers, the configuration of over 200 extensions, cloud VoIP with self-service portals, and 3CX support for the call centre.
The result of this partnership means that lines of communication are always open, both for Crisis UK volunteers and guests. For the team of over one hundred advisors, the 3CX call centre is optimised to suit both their office-based and remote working needs. An0 Technologies worked with Gradwell, Aimar and Crisis to integrate the 3CX instance with Office365 and Microsoft Dynamics. This integration makes it easier for call centre volunteers to provide help and advice to callers, with faster access to digital resources and knowledge bases. And for volunteers working at the venues, the solution ensures direct communication with the centralised logistics hub, third parties and suppliers should there be any issues on-site.
Gradwell are honoured to have the opportunity to continue working in partnership with The Aimar Foundation and An0 Technologies every year to support this event. It’s a hugely appreciated opportunity that enables the Gradwell team to give back, using their technology skills and experience to support people at what for many, is the most difficult time of the year.
Crisis UK is a national charity set up to support homeless people by providing advice, support, and access to essential services.
The Aimar Foundation was established to help charities achieve their aspirations through efficient implementation, application and utilisation of technology.
An0 Technology is an enterprise IT & Cloud consultancy based in London.
