WaterAid UK

About WaterAid UK

WaterAid is a federated organisation that provides sanitation services for people living in areas of extreme poverty. Around the world, 785 million people live without access to clean water, while a further 2 billion don’t have a decent toilet of their own. With country programmes in some of the world’s most remote places, WaterAid exists to address these issues.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, WaterAid had moved most of their technology over to cloud-based solutions and was reaping the benefits of minimal upfront costs, remote access, greater agility, and low-hassle maintenance.

When WaterAid moved its offices from Vauxhall to Canary Wharf, it meant the international NGO for water, sanitation, and hygiene, wanted to migrate its IT services to a data centre - removing any legacy on-premise equipment.

As part of this improvement, WaterAid wanted to migrate from a traditional on-premise phone system to a cloud-based UC platform that would afford them greater flexibility. Microsoft Teams was an obvious candidate but would only be a viable option if calls could be recorded without capturing sensitive card payment data.

Its phone system was one of the final pieces of the puzzle - a Mitel platform they had been using for years that no longer delivered the flexibility they wanted.

Like most UK businesses, the need for a unified communications platform became urgent when the country entered lockdown in spring 2020. It was crucial that staff could collaborate as effectively from home as in the office. It was also imperative that the Supporter Care Line team, who handled a huge number of enquiries and donations, could answer calls promptly and professionally without having to reroute them.

“Having Teams with Clarify recording has helped us work together better as an organisation and deliver a secure and streamlined service to customers, despite the turbulent year we’ve just had. It stands us in good stead whatever the future holds, whether staff are in the office or working remotely.

One of the features our Support Care team likes best is how easy it is to call people back by copying and pasting referral lists. Using voicemails as emails, which are easier to share and store, also saves time. We’ve actually reduced the length of time people are waiting and the number of callbacks because it’s so much easier to receive and transfer calls to other departments within Teams.”

“Clarify is much easier to use than the previous call monitoring system and we love the ability to listen into calls and view call volumes immediately and easily.”

“One of the reasons that we selected Focus Group was because of an experience working on another project with them. We’ve always found them to be knowledgeable with great problem-solving skills.”

Gary Hodgson, IT Project Manager