Expect a Wait – COVID-19 Causes Sky to Shut Cardiff Call Centre UPDATE
Customers of Sky UK (ISP Sky Broadband) should expect a longer than usual wait when trying to contact the operator’s support team, which is likely to be the result of the operator’s sudden move to close their Cardiff contact centre after one of their employees tested positive for the Coronavirus COVID-19.
The sizeable call centre, which is based in the Capital Quarter (Tyndall Street), was evacuated yesterday following the confirmation of a positive test for COVID-19. The infected individual has now self-isolated themselves at home. Naturally this is expected to result in longer wait times to reach customer support.
Sky is now conducting a deep clean and, perhaps surprisingly, they intend to re-open the centre as early as this Thursday.
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A Spokesperson for Sky said:
“We can confirm that a Sky colleague in our Cardiff contact centre has been diagnosed with COVID-19 and they are self-isolating at home. Protecting our people is – and always will be – our top priority and so we are closing the contact centre today and sending everyone home as a precaution.
We’re contacting anyone who has been in contact with our colleague and the centre itself will be deep cleaned before reopening on Thursday.”
End.
UPDATE 12th March 2020
In a surprise twist, Sky now says that the related worker had actually tested “negative” for the virus and that they had acted “decisively” to shut the centre out of an abundance of caution, primarily to protect their workers.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Yeah they are First Source employees so they can be replaced easily enough as it’s an agency of sorts.
I walked past today and there were people in there – not sure if they were working mind.
It’s not an outsource site anymore its now been bought over.
I work in the same area, business as usual here, however.
Kinda stupid, if they’re diagnosed today or yesterday then that entire centre should be shut for ~2 weeks because if patient 0 speaks to a colleague, they most likely will become patient 1, who will speak to another colleague who then becomes patient 2, rinse repeat. They’re most likely going to close it down again.
Bingo.
Yeah but it’s all about the money… that’s ALL bad the government and businesses are thinking about, hence the damming comments from the WHO today.. they have never known a Coronavirus to cause a pandemic, which Covid 19 is now officially classed as. And they have never known a pandemic that can be controlled at the same time…
Money money money money…
Back to India then?
I hope that the affected people recover quickly. Also hope Sky takes this as a cue that developing remote-working capabilities is a very useful backup solution for unexpected events including natural disasters and epidemics.
In the age of VOIP, it’s would be curious if an ISP does not imbue its callcentre employees the ability to work anywhere they have a mobile/PC and internet access.
But at that point it becomes harder to control DPA, if I’m at home I have full access to the internet without any restrictions such as social media and the like. At this point I could leak anything I wanted, screenshot anything I wanted & whomever I work for whether it Sky BT Virgin, they would have no idea.
I dunno about your office, but I could use my phone to take a screenshot of my corporate machine at any time and get away with it. Plenty of opportunities like idle meeting rooms or even lunch time or after hours.
Our Data Security policy relies on not having access to data you shouldn’t and rigorous training, and a corporate laptop and phone with all the necessary security software for the IT department to maintain some control, not to mention the added incentive of not losing your job.
Of course when I’m away from the office, a VPN is required for most access.
Which company do you work for that allows you to have your mobile on the floor? In my Centre if we’re found to even have our phone on person and not in the locker then you’re fired as you’re told on day 1 that no mobiles are allowed and everywhere around the office there’s signs stating no mobiles beyond X point.
Unsure if they genuinely enforce it but the rumours I’ve heard would say yes, but nobody is dumb enough to try
i dunno, almost all businesses outside of healthcare allow mobiles. EVen at banks i see employees with phones. What are you on about? only some select businesses are as restrictive as you imagine.
All ISP contact centres, or any contact centres that give agents access to confidential customer data, have to adopt this policy @Spurple. That’s GDPR official protocol.
If your organization isn’t following it, you’re in for a load of fun come audit time…
Why do you assume I work in a contact centre?
Anyway, I’m willing to concede I’ve never been in one, so I don’t know what I’m talking about.