Garlands - UK's first Contact Centre Radio Station celebrates its 5th birthday

What started off as a fun project to improve the communications skills of a handful of Garlands' employees, has turned into one of the country's most successful corporate radio facilities - broadcasting music and company information to 3000 employees from a fully-equipped digital radio station in the Tees Valley.

"I can still clearly remember our very first day" says Terry Morrell, Manager of Radio Ga Ga and its first presenter. "We started broadcasting from a spare room in Garlands' Hartlepool offices. I'd been given £500 to buy some CDs and a brief to entertain and to keep people up-to-date with company matters. The station's first record was Radio Ga Ga by Queen. At the time I was a Team Manager working on the Vodafone account at Garlands and while I'd had a little bit of hospital radio experience in the 1980s, this really was an entirely new experience."

Radio Ga Ga was an instant hit. Terry, or 'El Tel' to his friends at Garlands, was shortly joined by Wendy Walkington and Katherine Bell (a.k.a. 'The Twisted Sisters') and Garlands' Chief Executive Chey Garland decided in early 2001 to create a purpose-built studio to put the station on a more permanent footing. The dedicated studio went live in December 2001 - and, in May 2006, was upgraded to digital with new computers and broadcast equipment.

Radio Ga Ga today boasts a digital collection of over 100,000 tracks. It has four dedicated DJs - Terry, Wendy, Paul 'Sparky' Bell and Trevor Sherwood - and broadcasts 24/7 to Garlands' employees.

Radio Ga Ga broadcasts to every contact centre suite within the company's Hartlepool Marina, Middleborough and Stockton customer contact centres. Music and commentary is audible to employees, but not at a level where it can be picked up on Advisors' headsets or at a level where it is a distraction to their work. And employees can pass messages and request music of their choice during the working day simply by emailing the station's DJs.

"We've had many highlights over the years" says Terry. "It's always a pleasure to announce good news - such as our new business and industry award wins, what charities we've chosen to sponsor for the year and, of course, the dates for the Garlands' Xmas parties".

Most memorable moment? "I think when we won the Virgin Mobile contract" says Terry. "I got to interview Richard Branson live. He said what a pleasure it was to be working with Garlands and that he was looking forward to a long and happy relationship. What a fantastic message to be able to broadcast to the entire company live!"

23rd January 2007