SHOP WATCH

Tetbury “Shop Watch”

Watchword

Members of the “Shop Watch” will be sent out messages from the Police via an automatic system, which we call Watchword.

Basically, the system works by the field officers dictating a message into a computer followed up by selecting a destination for the message. All members are registered by the scheme they are involved with and receive items relevant to that scheme.

In most cases, the information to be passed will be in the form of a spoken message and will be received by the member’s telephone. The phone will ring as normal and when the receiver is picked up, an announcement will advice that a Gloucestershire Constabulary Watchword message is to follow. The spoken message will then be delivered.

Information will be given such as suspicious incidents, people (including descriptions) vehicles etc along with dates and times. The success of the system obviously depends on the information received by the Police and then is down to us to disseminate back out through the scheme.

If you have an Answer Machine……

These will take the message but, as the action of the answer machine starting replicates the receiver being picked up, Watchword will begin to deliver its message whilst your greeting is playing. Other call management scheme’s such as “The number called knows you are waiting” or “The number called is busy, if you wish to use ring back press 5” also replicate the receiver being picked up and, therefore, Watchword will deliver its message, however if there is no recording device on these services then the message will be lost.

To recall a message, there is a call back facility to enable you to listen to messages that have been sent out. To do this you will need to telephone 01242 276766. A recorded message will invite you to enter an extension number and at this point you should enter the number 1234. The selected “Mailbox” will hold the previous 10 messages sent out for this scheme, playing the most recent first. If you need to hear an earlier message, just keep listening. Once you have heard the appropriate message, simply replace the handset. This facility can be accessed at any time.  

Watchword makes use of the Gloucestershire Police telephone management system and has been developed jointly by our communications team and the manufacturers, Voice Connect of Leicester.