With the outbreak of Coronavirus (Covid-19) becoming a global pandemic, we wanted to keep our customers and partners informed on how we are responding as a business and telecommunications provider.
We have a business continuity plan ready in preparation for situations just like this, so we can guarantee service continuity for our customers during this time.
How we are responding as a company?
We have taken extra steps to ensure the health and wellbeing of both staff and customers. On top of this, we have taken measures to ensure your services remain uninterrupted if we were to make any changes within the business. These precautions are as follows:
- Communications to staff on hygiene has been increased to help prevent the spread of the virus in line with UK Government recommendations. This includes increasing awareness through online communication and visual aids throughout our offices.
- In the event we require our staff to work remotely, each team member has had their home working environment assessed. We have ensured that each member has access to a laptop, a sufficient internet connection, a suitable place to work, a working mobile phone and any other equipment necessary to carry out their duties. This means that our support line will remain fully operational with no changes to our opening times.
- An internal working group has been established across the business to monitor and respond to the ongoing situation. This ensures that we are aware of the impact to the business and can respond quickly should the situation develop.
- For our business customers, we will be reducing the number of face-to-face meetings and switch to remote meetings via teleconference/video conference.
- We will be implementing a proactive change freeze to your service from today for the next two weeks to ensure that your service remains stable and connected at a time when service stability is critical. We will assess the situation again in 2 weeks and will update you if this is extended further. We will continue to provision services throughout this period and any emergency change will be reviewed through an exceptions process.
Changes to our engineering practices
We are making some simple changes to our engineering procedures. Going forward, upon booking of new installations and fixes, our Customer Care team will assess the situation and establish the possible presence of a patient with COVID-19. We will ask the following two questions:
- Has anyone in the premises been diagnosed with COVID-19, been asked to self-isolate, or has travelled to a Coronavirus high-risk area or country in the last 14 days?
- Is anyone in the premises suffering from flu-like symptoms such as fever and prolonged coughing?
If the answer to the first question is yes, the appointment will be booked in 2 weeks-time. We will contact you again closer to the time to re-check the status to ensure that the person in the premises is clear of virus.
If the answer to the second question is yes, we will proceed with the job, but we will undertake additional hygiene actions, on top of our existing risk assessment and PPE arrangements. This includes wiping surfaces, asking the customer to remain in a different room, not accepting the offer of drinks and on finishing the job not completing the sign-off with the customer.
If the answer to both questions is no, the job will proceed as normal.
The engineers will be provided with protective equipment and other relevant hygiene items to ensure both parties are protected as much as possible.
We will of course keep you updated if this situation changes but in the meantime if you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact your Account Manager or our Customer Care team.
We like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support.
Keep safe.
