Sign Language Interpreter Booking System for the Deaf Community

GDA is a vibrant local deaf charity in Gloucestershire, which is growing strongly.  In recent years, its reputation for outstanding delivery on a whole range of services and activities for deaf and hard of hearing people has led to the organisation being awarded several health trust and local authority contracts.

GDA have now expanded the valuable work it does into Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire.

Increasing Success Brings An Increased Workload

However success can have its downside, and GDA’s dedicated staff were working ever longer hours to manage the significant increase in British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter requests and community centre room hire bookings. The ‘off the shelf’ software solution it had been using was no longer fit for purpose and there was a lot of duplication of admin.

To keep pace with the growing workload, GDA originally favoured another tried and tested ‘off the shelf’ bookings system, but after a lot of research realised that only a bespoke system could offer its exacting requirements.

They needed a deceptively simple, user-friendly interface that would be intuitive for significant numbers of frontline staff in a range of organisations, and at the same time would work just as well for up to 50 BSL interpreters out and about all day long with only their smartphones to hand. 

Evergreen developed an online bookings system that:

• is pleasingly easy to manage for the very different groups of users.
• substantially reduces time and workload for administrative staff at GDA – managing booking requests, checking interpreter availability, confirming assignments, and invoicing.
• has improved efficiency to enable GDA not only to take on three additional contracts since the system was installed but with the capacity to grow much further in years to come.

Jenny Hopkins is GDA’s Chief Executive Officer. She says of her experience working with Evergreen: 

“At first we were cautious about going down the bespoke solution road.  We were worried about the cost, and it also felt riskier.  However, once we met Andrew and Simon, we just knew we wanted to work with Evergreen.  We had what we thought was a hugely complicated spec; they helped simplify it.  The whole time, we felt they listened to us and then worked patiently and always good-naturedly in helping us achieve what we needed. It is, without doubt, one of the best investments we have made in recent years.”

GDA is also delighted at how well the new bookings system is going down with BSL interpreters and other users:

• “So much easier than other systems. . .It’s fab”,  Donna W.
• “I like it too. Nice and easy to use. Saves time doing your own invoices.”,  Verity G.
• “It’s brilliant overall, so much easier.”,  Fiona R.
• “I love it. Super easy and quick to invoice. Definitely the best portal I’ve used so far.”, Beth 

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