It’s World Telecommunication day

Today is World Telecommunication day! The theme this year is ‘accelerating digital transformation in challenging times’. Due to the Covid situation over the past year, this theme is very close to our hearts. So what does this theme mean to us? For us it means keeping people together, communities connected and businesses operating through the power of communications technology. It means overcoming the constraints of physical isolation through strong, reliable and seamless connectivity. Our purpose is to drive a digital Malta where no one is left behind as a lot of people have been affected by these challenging times. The demand for ultra-fast internet connectivity skyrocketed as more and more people resorted to remote working and home schooling over the past year. Businesses required innovative solutions to take their operations online, or support their workforce to go remote. We took this on board and realised that we had to adapt, and adapt fast with the current challenges.

So how did we do this?

We supported our employees

With a workforce of over 700, employee safety and wellbeing took top priority from the get go. We ensured that any member of staff that could work remotely, had the necessary means to do so. The call centre was mobilised and is now operating from all corners of the island. Within days, most of the organisation was working efficiently from home. Frontline employees were equipped with all the necessary safety gear and training required for them to carry out their duties safely and responsibly and processes were adapted accordingly. We also set up a desk booking system to manage the inflow of employees coming back to the office as restrictions eased.

Supporting the GO community

Our retail outlets had to be physically adapted, and our processes digitised to reduce footfall in our outlets to contain physical interaction, and keep everyone as safe as possible. Our technical front liners were equipped with all the necessary protective equipment in order to continue serving the community. But this is not all. We extended free mobile services to the nations front liners to enable them to remain connected with their loved ones whilst they fought our fight against the pandemic. Our TV app was opened to everyone, even non-GO customers, to help keep them connected to the content they love during the lockdown period. We undertook every effort to ensure that customers remain connected, no matter what. We invested heavily in our online and digital platforms to ensure that our customers can purchase new products, upgrade or top up their services, pay bills and make use of a host of other services from the comfort and safety of their homes.

Supporting businesses

GO has been connecting businesses for the past 45 years, contributing greatly to Malta’s digital transformation. During this time, we have built solid relationships with the business community. To us, ensuring that businesses can continue to operate, no matter the circumstance means that they can continue to bring added value to the community they serve and consequently grow and continue to be successful. The past year has proved how important this is. Having a complex operation ourselves, we fully understood the challenges and disruption businesses were facing. Experiencing this disruption ourselves, we were in a position to proactively reach out to our customers with bespoke solutions for their respective operations, ensuring that their employees were connected to the best technology, with increased bandwidth, as required.

This past year was a strong reminder of how privileged we are to have such an important role in Maltese society – of how our work keeps people connected, of how we do everything in our power so that no one is left behind. Do we do everything perfectly? Definitely not. Are we fully prepared for what lies ahead? Possibly. But one thing we can confidently agree to, is our commitment to do better and to do right by our customers, as One Team.

The telecommunications industry will continue to innovate and evolve post-Covid and as GO, we have revamped and simplified our online customer journey so that our customers feel save in a contactless environment. Besides this, we have also made our mobile plans more affordable since we know that people are using technology more than ever to communicate not just professionally with their co-workers but with their family and friends. Due to this, we also launched our Same Day Internet to ensure that our customers are always connected.