Twilio Flex: the technology powering human connection

Twilio Flex is the solution of choice for hundreds of global businesses, helping improve communication by seamlessly embedding voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and email into their existing infrastructure.

But the solution doesn’t just deliver benefits for commercial organisations. In fact, it’s Twilio Flex that underpins national charity Age UK’s volunteer-led initiatives, most notably their Telephone Friendship Service (TFS). Age UK is committed to tackling loneliness in older people, with this free service matching isolated individuals with volunteers for weekly chats. Building trust with callers is crucial, so Age UK needed a dependable solution that could reliably ensure these calls could go ahead.

We’ve consulted with the volunteers across the Silver Line Helpline – Age UK’s 24-hour telephone service – and the TFS to hear how Twilio Flex supports their day-to-day, shining a light on the positive role technology can play in powering human connection.

Seamless technology, smooth communications

Before moving to Twilio, Age UK had seven different telephony systems across different teams and parts of the organisation. Now, it has just two. As the charity’s set-up works slightly differently to typical commercial customer service lines, the solution needed to flex with shifting circumstances. For example, as staff and volunteer numbers grow, it scales in hours rather than costly user licenses.

The cloud-based solution also offers a number of functions that were adapted to Age UK’s specific requirements, including the ability to hide all personal details to ensure the privacy of both volunteer and caller, and routing calls to a specialist tier if a caller is in distress.

Building the foundation for connection

Trust is everything when dealing with vulnerable people. Twilio Flex builds it in two distinct ways: operational reliability for the charity, and safety for the beneficiaries. We asked the volunteers to tell us more about how this trust-building translates into greater outcomes all round:

• Boosting performance. Leveraging a secure cloud footprint means Age UK gets near-perfect uptime, while maintaining a highly cost-effective structure, ensuring more donor money goes directly to services rather than IT maintenance. ‘By being able to trust that the line will always be clear and easy to understand means you can concentrate on what you need to do personally to help someone, rather than worrying about the technical side,’ noted one volunteer.
• Increasing agility. ‘When there are situations where callers need additional help, we have to be very quick to respond to their needs to try and aid them – especially when they are experiencing increased levels of stress and anxiety.’ If an older person or a concerned relative reaches out for a routine inquiry, Twilio Flex allows for a flawless, context-aware handover to a live human agent the moment a conversation becomes sensitive or complex.
• Levelling up the support. The platform handles the volunteer screening process, matchmaking, and streamlined call routing behind the scenes, allowing volunteers to focus entirely on the human on the other end of the line. ‘Twilio always having a reliable service makes sure our members know they can trust they’ll be able to speak to us when they need to, and feel confident that their calls will go ahead each week,’ noted one volunteer.

Future-proofing without losing the human touch

Providing older people with secure ways to connect relies on trusted technology. Support from Zing meant Age UK could turn an ambitious goal into a consolidated achievement, bringing together multiple telephone services into a single platform. At the same time, Twilio Flex provides a lot of functionality out of the box, which is constantly improving, and ultimately means that the volunteers can simply get on with their roles without having to worry about the technology in the background. And while Twilio is proud of what’s been achieved so far, the platform will go on to scale and evolve right alongside the TFS service, having an even greater impact on chronic loneliness as a result.

Find out more about how Twilio Flex supports Age UK volunteers with building meaningful connections and combatting chronic loneliness