With the news surrounding Coronavirus (Covid-19) changing by the hour, we’re taking proactive steps here at SDL Group to make sure that it’s business as usual during the next few months, regardless of what they throw at us. Our number one priority is making sure that we protect our customers as well as our staff and their families.
As a business we are preparing behind the scenes so that we can continue to help our customers with their questions and queries. Over the past few months we’ve made the change to using a cloud-based telephone system. This means that our front-line, customer facing staff can work from anywhere at any time – whether this be from our offices across the country, or from their own homes.
We have also had a flexible working policy in place at SDL Group for some time, meaning many of our team are already well equipped to work from home. Over the next few days, we will be instructing our teams to take advantage of this, wherever possible, to minimise the risk to themselves, their colleagues and their loved ones. Our working hours across the group have
not altered, and our team will still be fully contactable.
In our
Wise Living business, we anticipate the main impact will be any repairs to customer’s homes. This is due to potentially having limited advisors to take calls, as well as limited contractors available to enter homes and carry out the repairs. This means, we are asking our customers to consider the following before reporting any repairs to us:
- Is the repair an emergency?
- Are they able to facilitate access to the contractor?
- Can the repair wait, or can the repair be completed by the customer?
In
SDL Property Management it is also possible that Coronavirus could impact our ability to perform repairs and maintenance tasks across developments that we manage. Therefore, customers are also encouraged to use the above steps before reporting maintenance issues. As more of our staff are encouraged to work from home, we will naturally see a reduction in the amount of correspondence that we are able to send via post. Residents are advised to sign up
here for the SDL 360 property portal, if they haven’t already done so. If any resident is concerned about the presence of Coronavirus in their block, we have advised them to get in touch with their Property Manager so that necessary steps can be taken to reduce the risk for all residents and staff.
For
SDL Auctions, it is important to recognise that while we can have several hundred people attend our auctions, this is currently not in the numbers being considered by the government in terms of the postponements of public gatherings. We will have extra supplies of antibacterial wipes and gel around our auction rooms, to make sure our staff and customers are as protected as possible. However, we would understand that there may be some customers who do not feel comfortable attending, so we have a number of remote bidding options available. These include telephone bidding, proxy bidding and internet bidding. For more information on these methods, please visit the
SDL Auctions website.
Our
Century 21 UK offices are also taking steps to operate digitally over the coming weeks, to continue to provide the very best service for our customers. All offices are still open and operating for now, with all properties continuing to be marketed locally, nationally and internationally.
For the latest Covid-19 advice, please visit
www.nhs.uk, and if you think you may have the virus, please us the NHS 111 online service to find out what to do next:
111.nhs.uk/covid-19. In the event that our approach to any of the above changes in the coming days, we will keep you updated.
