VC Relay ‘has fantastic power to communicate, reassure and educate’ says Warrington Trading Standards

Warrington is a large industrial town with over 190.000 residents located between Manchester and Liverpool. The town’s borough council has a proactive Trading Standards department whose mission is ‘to promote a fair and safe trading environment’. This remit includes ensuring that traders describe goods accurately, that safety standards are met, that products are priced properly and that all legal requirements are fulfilled. The department also provides an advice service for members of the public who have purchased goods or services that they are unhappy with, offering guidance on what action can be taken.

In 2004, the authority set up iCAN (the Consumer Alert Network) to tackle illegal trading practices taking place in the local area. Central to the success of this venture was the facility to open up lines of communication, enabling large numbers of the public to be contacted quickly. So, in addition to the quarterly ‘iCAN’ newsletter sent out to members, the authority needed the facility to issue regular updates and warnings to targeted groups at short notice.

After some research into the options available, Voice Connect’s VC Relay system was installed that same year. This system, used by police forces and Neighbourhood Watch schemes across the UK, enabled the network to quickly send out large numbers of messages to their database members via text, voicemail or e-mail.

Roger Mapleson, Consumer and Business Protection Manager for Warrington and Halton Trading Standards, explains how use of the system has grown since it was first installed. “We now have over 3,700 residents on the iCAN database using VC Relay to communicate with us and each other,” he says. “We have worked hard to establish relationships within the community, specifically with residents in the more deprived areas of the borough. We have been really pleased with the positive uptake of the scheme.”

So successful has the iCAN initiative with VC Relay been, that the neighbouring Halton Trading Standards Authority has joined with Warrington. “Staff at Halton work closely with us, using VC Relay and the model of the original iCAN scheme,” explains Roger. “They have direct access to our server and are able to operate VC Relay from their own PCs.” The additional revenue that this raised also enabled Warrington TS to upgrade the system. Trafford Metropolitan Borough also signed up to the system last year and are now building and developing their own iCAN using the system.

VC Relay is regularly used to warn people about various scams, doorstep crimes and illegal practices which go on in the town, as well as giving members relevant consumer advice. Two examples of recent incidents in which Warrington TS successfully used VC Relay to notify the public include the apprehension of the owner of a bogus damp proofing company which had been operating in the Cheshire region for over 10 years and the arrest of those responsible for a sham charity collection. In the first example, the use of VC Relay enabled Warrington TS to alert iCAN members to the damp proofing scam as soon as the company started cold calling and leafleting. In the second example, an iCAN member alerted the organisation to their suspicions about a clothing collection, allegedly by a national charity. The collections were monitored by TS staff and found to be bogus, resulting in an arrest.

VC Relay’s best three features according to Warrington Trading Standards:

1. The system is easy to use.

2. It has fantastic power to communicate, reassure and educate.

3. It makes it easy for members to feedback to us.

Based on the success with VC Relay, Warrington Borough Council have recently installed Voice Connect’s Lone Worker system which protects workers on site visits or those who work alone. As the council already had the core component of the VCII hub, adding the Lone Worker system was an economically sound decision. The system is currently being piloted by a section of staff in the authority.

Roger is very positive about the whole experience of using VC Relay and the impact that it has had on the iCAN initiative. “Voice Connect has been an excellent company to work with. They are constantly innovating and coming up with new solutions and have always sorted out any technical glitches quickly. We have every confidence in them as a company and VC Relay as a product and are happy to recommend them to other local authorities. Good communication is the cornerstone of iCAN’s success – VC Relay has played a significant part in enabling us to take our message out into the wider community.”

 

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