HOW BE HEARD™ WORKS

Be Heard™ enters into a formal agreement with a subscriber to provide and manage an excellent outsourced disclosure service on behalf of the subscriber to enable any stakeholder (ie employee, contractor, supplier, member of the public) to report any matter which may be of interest to the subscriber. This may include dishonest, illegal or inappropriate activities, contraventions of codes of conduct, sexual harassment, racism, nepotism and environmental issues.

The subscriber pays Be Heard™ a monthly retainer and in return Be Heard™ provides each subscriber with a range of communication channels so that a stakeholder can make a disclosure using the means most convenient to him. These include the following:

	A telephone number unique to each subscriber which is normally a Freecall (0800) or a Sharecall (0860) number so that the caller incurs no or limited cost in making the call. These numbers are easy to remember and calls can be made at no (or minimum) cost to the caller. The reason why each “corporate package” subscriber is allocated a unique number is that the technology management system recognises each call to a specific number as referring to a specific subscriber and enables the calls to be answered in on a personalised basis and for accurate statistics of all the calls received to be generated automatically.
	An SMS number 082-678-777 where stakeholders can send a disclosure by SMS or those stakeholders unable to make free calls (eg from a cell phone) can send Be Heard™ a “Please Call Me” message and one of the operators will call the stakeholder back at no charge.
	A generic Maxicall fax number (0861-BEHEARD) which is a fax to e-mail service.
	A unique e-mail address is allocated to each subscriber which is normally abc@beheard.co.za thus identifying the subscriber
	A Freepost address is made available to enable stakeholders, who may not have access to other communication channels, to make a disclosure. This channel is often used where a stakeholder may wish to send evidence to support a disclosure.
	Our website has a template which a stakeholder can complete and submit. This is a useful facility as, if it is properly designed, the person making the disclosure can’t be traced.

Our technology solution includes an Un-interrupted Power Supply (UPS) unit as well as a generator to ensure that it can provide an uninterrupted service 24 hours a day.

All disclosures made by telephone are recorded digitally and stored so that these recorded calls can be accessed at some later stage should a dispute arise or should the details of the call need to be reviewed.

Once the contact centre receives the disclosure it is reviewed by an experienced person who will always listen to the recording again to ensure that every detail has been noted. The disclosure is “sanitised” to remove the name or any other information which could identify the stakeholder - should he have chosen to remain anonymous. The report is then signed off by a senior manager and is posted on the unique “Subscriber Club” section of the website. An SMS is sent to the person in the subscriber’s organisation who is designated to receive the report. (A number of designated persons will be appointed to ensure that should a disclosure involve one of the designated persons it is sent to one of the others.)

One of the designated persons logs onto the Be Heard™ website using his unique user name and password and accesses the report. He can also review all statistics pertaining to his service in real-time. This section of the website is tamper proof and no one can delete or alter any of the reports.

As Be Heard™ has a national network of “adopters” who “partner” the subscriber and provide hands-on advice on how to do an initial investigation of the allegations contained in the report and take the matter further.

These “adopters” also play a critical role in complimenting the processes developed by Be Heard™ to promote the service to all their stakeholders.

Be Heard™ has developed a very attractive range of promotional material and systems which a subscriber can make use of to promote the existence of the service.

Be Heard™ is able to manage a reward programme on behalf of subscribers. To ensure that the person making the disclosure remains anonymous to the subscriber the reward can be paid by Be Heard™ to the person who has made the disclosure in such a manner that any tax is deducted and paid to SARS before the reward is paid. This will mean that the person being paid the reward will not have to list the reward as revenue received on his tax return. The subscriber paying the reward will receive a VAT invoice for “Management Services” which he can bring to book in the normal manner.