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digitalkIssue 43, June 2004 the newsletter for Sky Field Operations people the famous five how the business partners are supporting Sky Picture: Visual Media Refer a Friend to join the field force and you could earn up to £1,500 – see page 2 02-03 1/6/04 11:23 am Page 2 2 newstalk t’s been a busy year so far, with the roll out of they join you will earn hundreds of pounds. Mobile Field Technology, the new Vivaro vans Recommend a friend to be a Sky engineer contents I and now the eye-catching leopard print and you could earn up to £1,500 if your designs. friend stays with us for 18 months! Life for a Sky engineer is certainly So if you know someone who might never dull and 2004/05 is shaping up want to join the field force, find out to be another extremely busy year! more by reading the pack you are 2/3 In fact Sky is recruiting an due to receive this month and get holiday additional 300 engineers across the your form back to to the recruitment snaps and UK to help us meet demand and team in Dunfermline. achieve our plans for the year. leopard print So why not ask your friends to Editors: Anna Jones (left) and hair apply for a job on the field force – if Heather Beresford 4/5 spotlight on Kate snaps up a prize Cobra Pictured here is Kate Griggs from Sky’s Cable Department, who won £15 of HMV vouchers for sending in a photo of her 6/7 standing next to a Sky advert in Naples, Italy. man in the “I work in the van and commercial division, daredevils running an incentive rewards scheme, and regularly visit cable call centres, marketing the Sky Channels,” said Kate. “But this picture was 8 taken on holiday. I told my friends we get meet the vouchers for taking training pictures with the word team Sky in overseas, so they took this!” ■ Vision sends out vouchers for pictures with the word Sky in, whereas we award get in touch vouchers for pictures of people reading digitalk digitalk is published by Sky Subscriber overseas. Services Ltd, Carnegie Campus, But we made an Dunfermline, Fife KY11 8GH exception for this Italian Editors cartoon engineer! Anna Jones and Heather Beresford: With the summer [email protected] holiday season just Editorial contributors around the corner, email Claire Stewart, Adrian Manson, or post a photo of you reading digitalk overseas, Lorraine McNee, Cheryl Freeland, to the usual address and Marie Douglas, Mark Maddox, Gwen Renz, we will send you £15 of Paul McIntyre, Alan Hawthorne, HMV vouchers! Jackie Galloway, Heidi Bruckland, Robert Fraser,Martin Henry and Bill Collins This is your mag and we want to know what’s happening on your patch.If you have any technical questions,suggestions super six win customer plaudits or anecdotes you’d like to share with digitalk then drop us a line at: digitalk,c/o Congratulations to six of our engineers who ■ Gerry McCandless – very professional and Internal Communications,Sky,Grant Way, have all been sent £20 of vouchers after courteous Isleworth,Middlesex TW7 5QD or send us customers wrote in to praise their work. ■ Allan Burns – a great engineer and a an email at [email protected] and you Here’s how they described them: wonderful help could win a prize. ■ Kevin Muers – helpful and polite ■ Mark Mason – was initially given the ■ Scott Fitzgerald – did an excellent job wrong address, but he found the new Cover image courtesy of Visual Media ■ Ernest Hughes – provided an address and worked late to finish the exceptionally high standard of service job. digitalk June 2004 hallof fame 02-03 1/6/04 11:24 am Page 3 newstalk 3 new leopard skin vans roar Steven Oliver, a trainer at Knaresborough, finalises the into action MFT device for an engineer Hundreds more liveried vans hit the road base and outstripping most of its this spring with the next batch – 125 competitors. The current target is 8 feedback good Animal Planet and 125 National million subscribers and we will achieve Geographic – being rolled out this month. this only by pursuing new target groups, The response from engineers has promoting the fact that Sky offers far as handsets get been mainly positive, and we’ve heard more than news and sport.” stories of customers shrieking when Chris Roberts, an engineer from the on-the-job use they open the front door, kids asking for North region was taken aback when he a ride in the van and people waving in first saw the vans, but now likes them More than 800 engineers are now live with the Mobile the street. and believes they will be highly effective Field Technology (MFT) handsets and feedback so far “Most engineers are delighted with in promoting content. has been excellent, with every engineer delighted to see the liveried vans,” says Mark Maddox, “They are certainly different! But it’s the back of the jobsheets. director of Field Operations. like anything new – you get used to it Training has gone well, with most engineers reading Feedback suggests most engineers don’t you. They show what a variety of up on the features of the handset before the training channels Sky offers, which will sessions and mastering the technology very quickly. mean more business for us.” The Bluetooth problems experienced by some Special care engineer, Peter engineers are being addressed by the project team, Engineer Andy Roberts from the West region, is which is working closely with o2, the Xda II supplier, to Haines from meanwhile in danger of overcome the issue. As a temporary measure engineers team w001 in becoming family chauffeur. “I are being asked to use earpieces until the issue is the West picked up my new leopard skin resolved, and the team region is so van in May and I think the livery will soon be testing impressed is brilliant! alternative solutions in the with his van, “My grandsons, who are three field. The MFT team is he has dyed and six, now refuse to travel in also working hard to his hair to my Land Rover Discovery and understand stock match! insist on going in ‘Grampy’s new ordering issues – could van’. It’s like being in the army you meanwhile help again – people wave at me when reduce stock problems by I’m driving along! These vans turn remembering the are getting used to the idea and more heads than a Ferrari – it gives Sky following points: ■ The device must be in understand the rationale behind the a real chance to impress.” An engineer performs a series of advertising. Sky is certainly keen to maximise GPRS coverage to send practical tasks with the Xda II “The fact is, Field Operations is part of returns on the new vans. “We made a the information to a giant media company, which has multi-million pound investment in these Hagemeyer for delivery. So if you order stock check for achieved a phenomenal level of success vans,” says Mark. “So why pay to coverage, leave it logged on for at least an hour. This is through continual innovation,” says advertise on other organisation’s particularly important if you are ordering stock on your Mark. “Sky has always used creative vehicles, such as taxis or buses, when day off. marketing techniques to promote its we have a new fleet of commercial ■ The cut off for two-day delivery is 11am, and if you wide-ranging content and these vans vehicles travelling all over the country? order stock just before the deadline the information may are playing an integral role in the “Engineers drive these vans into not be sent in time (as per the previous point). So please company’s latest creative marketing residential areas, through busy city allow plenty of time. The day before is ideal. strategy. centres and across open, remote “We’ve experienced a few teething problems, as you “Sky is growing with phenomenal countryside. They provide great would expect with a project of this size and complexity,” speed – rapidly expanding its customer publicity and we appreciate the crucial said MFT project manager, Martin Henry. “And we are role engineers are playing.” working with our technology partners, Idesta, to resolve ■ Watch this space for more them as quickly as possible. news on the liveried vans! “Overall the roll-out has gone very smoothly and feedback from the engineers has been highly positive. The feedback from the field has proved invaluable throughout pilot trials and the roll-out this year, so Picture: Visual Media please continue to contact your team managers with ideas and suggestions.” ■ If you have any MFT queries, the Idesta helpdesk is available on 0870 8305210 between 7am and 9pm. ■ Stop press: All engineers now have their Xda IIs and new vans! June 2004 digitalk 4 talkingpoint 5 working together to deliver the best This month we launch a new feature on Sky’s five Business Partners, finding out what they are doing in each region to help Sky deliver world-beating customer service. In this edition we turn the spotlight on Cobra…. In the early years at Sky, when the dedicated to them,” says Alan. “They now company had just three channels and have clear communication channels so operated from a handful of Portakabins at they can get hold of Sky people when they Osterley, it needed PIPs to carry out need support.” thousands of installations as demand for “Historically, the quality of installations Sky’s services steadily increased.