Christmas 2024 opening hours. We're open and here to support you throughout the holiday period

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and we're still here to help you right until 4pm on Christmas Eve! 🎄

We want to make sure all our wonderful clients know about our opening hours during the festive season. Here’s what you need to know:

✨ Closed: Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year's Day – because even we need time for mince pies and New Year’s resolutions!

✨ Open: We're here for you 24/7 on all other days until we resume our regular hours on 2 January 2025.

Thank you so much for your support and business throughout 2024.  We're bigger than ever and looking forward to a successful 2025.

Enjoy the holidays, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you need us before or after the big celebrations!

We might even get some snow this year

PS when it snowed a few weeks ago, we tried to make a snowman on our balcony.  Not a great effort, but we tried...

Please don't ask why he is wearing plastic gloves and a Captain's hat

PS We've made a donation to the incredible Mesothelioma UK charity instead of spending money on Christmas cards - please do support them if you can, too

NORAC - The National Organisation of Asbestos Consultants - shares our "Damage" report update

Great to see that NORAC has shared our Damage report update for November 2024.

Visit norac.org.uk to read more

Read more here: https://alpha-tracker.co.uk/damage

No more European Asbestos Forum... welcome the Global Asbestos Forum. Big change after 10 years of EAF success

That's another EAF Conference wrapped-up after celebrating 10 years of sharing information, data, and fellowship amongst the asbestos community.

President Yvonne's final announcement was that the European Asbestos Forum will now become the Global Asbestos Forum, finally recognising the worldwide reach of her asbestos foundation.

The Brussels conference was as lively and interesting as ever, and thanks again to Mesothelioma UK CEO Liz for presenting some of our "Damage" statistics in her enthralling and powerful talk.  We produced the update using the latest asbestos data from Alpha Tracker.

Here are some of the highlights:

Brussels at Christmas takes some beating

Meso UK Liz talking about asbestos in UK schools and hospitals

The Alpha Tracker "Damage" November 2024 update was on every table

Professor Roger Willey from ACS Risk and his enthralling presentation

The most moving moment - a tribute to Helen Bone

In the middle - Sam Collins (BOHS/IATP), Philip Hibbs (Hibbs Associates), Roger Willey (ACS)

Roger and Alpha Tracker's Robin

It wonderful to meet so many Alpha Tracker asbestos software users from around the world.  What a wonderful opportunity to talk asbestos in great company, with excellent food and a drink or three.

Next stop Brussels! The update to our "Damage" report is on its way

Robin is on the Eurostar, taking an update to our "Damage" report to the EAF Conference in Brussels. The report update takes recent data from asbestos surveys and reinspections from asbestos software Alpha Tracker and examines the current condition of asbestos in UK schools and hospitals.

The report update is heading to Brussels (with Robin!)

We'll be sharing the data and report update with Mesothelioma UK's CEO Liz Darlison.  Liz is talking to the conference about asbestos in schools - so the update will be timely and relevant.

Melika is back! You'll be speaking to her on the Support Desk when you call

Melika has returned to us after her work experience month and has started her career with us.  We were delighted to offer her a job as she impressed us so month during her first spell in our Telford software development office.

Melika Smith, our new trainee

Melika will take on a variety of roles, gaining hands-on experience in how we run our business and develop software for our clients. She'll apply her coding training as she progresses toward becoming a full-time developer.

Melika's a fascinating person to talk to and has arrived in Telford via Glasgow, Turkey, and many other place inbetween! So do get chatting if you call and she answers the phone.  You can't miss her, she's the only one with a Scottish/Turkish accent!

Head-spinning announcement coming soon! It's all about our new Lab Sample Exchange. Might turn things on their head!

We've just recorded an interview with another software company about the launch of our Lab Sample Exchange - and their identity might surprise you!

Our collaboration might turn the asbestos lab market upside down!

I've squeezed 3 different "head-spinning" puns into this blog post... that's more than enough! Watch out for the full announcement shortly...

We are taking an update to our "Damage" report to the European Asbestos Forum Conference in Brussels this week

It's 18 months since we first issued our "Damage" report about the condition of asbestos in UK schools, hospitals and homes (see https://alpha-tracker.co.uk/damage).

We've checked the latest asbestos stats from Alpha Tracker to create an update ready to take to the European Asbestos Forum Conference in Brussels later this week.

Overall, the situation is just as bad as it was in 2023. In hospitals, half of the asbestos

samples reinspected in the last two years still show signs of damage. In our schools, almost

all of the asbestos re-checked by specialists shows sign of deterioration. This simply is not

good enough and reflects the appalling state of the UK public infrastructure.

There are signs of improvement, though. Some of the most dangerous asbestos materials

have been removed since the original surveys were undertaken, showing that some sensible

prioritisation is happening.

We launched the original report with MPs from all parties

We have a new government in the UK with new priorities and a different approach to public

health. We’ll be sharing these results with MPs to encourage them to take asbestos-related

disease seriously. We have lost more people to asbestos in 2024 than in any previous year

– and this simply cannot be allowed to continue.

Kim has been visiting AMC Asbestos in York to deliver one of our Alpha Tracker clinics

Alpha Tracker specialist Kim has been in York this week visiting asbestos consultancy AMC Asbestos.  She has been delivering one of our Alpha Tracker clinics, helping our clients to get the most from their Alpha Tracker asbestos software.

We think it's the first time that a dog has joined one of our training session! 

We had a paw-sitively great Alpha Tracker training session this week
—our furry trainee didn’t miss a single bone of information!

AMC Asbestos have now completed more than 30,000 asbestos surveys - congratulations to them!  Find out more about AMC here https://www.amc-asbestos.co.uk/ or contact Kim to arrange your own Alpha Tracker clinic via our normal website: https://alpha-tracker.co.uk/

Would you like a new "Dead" status on Alpha Tracker enquiries & quotations?

We currently support four different statuses on our enquiries & quotations within Alpha Tracker.

The statuses are:

• Enquiry (no financial information logged, it's just a record of first contact)
• Open (an quotation in discussion with the prospect or client)
• Won (a quotation where the client has said yes)
• Lost (they said no - perhaps based on price, need, or the business went to a competitor)

The four quote statuses currently in Alpha Tracker

Would you like to see another, called "Dead"?  This is where the quotation hasn't officially been lost but, instead, the prospect/client has stopped responding.

Please do let us know what you think - click here to email us.  Thanks!

Call volumes to our Support Desk are coming down. November tickets were 23% fewer than October

Ticket numbers are finally dropping on our Support Desk.  In November, we received 896 calls for help, down 23% compared to October.

ChatGPT invented the image - it's getting better!

Why the reduced number?  Our new clients have now settled into their routines and so the number of "how do I?" calls has dropped considerably.  We've also been focused on performance for a number of clients, changing our cloud setups so that documents produce more quickly and system response is better.

Response times were good, too, with 19 out of 20 calls being resolved in the timescale needed by the caller.