With the coronavirus pandemic impacting more and more people and businesses around the Globe, we wanted to reach out and update you on how we’re supporting our employees, and you—our customers and partners throughout these challenging times.

Supporting Our Employees, Customers and Partners

We’ve always put the welfare and wellbeing of our employees at the top of our list of priorities. This is why we’re planning to take measures to start limiting the need for our employees to have to physically come to work in our offices.

As such, all of our staff will be working from home every other day as from now to test our resilience to working from home as well as limit their displacement as much as possible, and thus, ensuring our ability to cope with any situation.

Thus, in order to get in touch with us, we want to privilege e-meeting solutions like Google Meet (https://meet.google.com/), and we are going to limit our in-person meetings as much as possible from now-on.

Our preferred communication channels for these 2 days and going forward while this global situation is ongoing are as follows;

1. Our Help Desk at http://support.gws-technologies.com/ or via e-mail at support@gws-technologies.com is generally the best way to get hold of us now. And in the odd chance something happens to our Country, getting the habit to always log your requests on our Help Desk will also ensure there’s always somebody on our team who will pick up your request and continue to provide you the service you deserve.
   
2. Via Live Chat if it’s really urgent at https://portal.gws-technologies.com/
   
3. For those of you who use slack, we can also provide access to our slack channel if you so wish. Just log the request on our Help Desk at http://support.gws-technologies.com/ and we’ll provide you with instructions to access the slack channel.
   
4. Via a conference call if you wish to talk to someone, either to Mr David Commarmond at https://calendly.com/david-commarmond, or on https://calendly.com/gws-website-team/ if it’s related to one of your web projects with us. It’ll then set a meeting up, and you’ll receive the Google Met URL to access the conference call automatically.

At the same time, we know that customers rely on GWS’ products and services, and we are committed to keeping them running smoothly. And following these instructions above will ensure a smooth line of communication between you and our team remains always open, even if some team members go offline for some period of time, there’s always someone who’ll be able to pick up any request logged on the help desk.

Ensuring Uptime for Customers and Partners

As most of our managed infrastructure is found on Google Cloud, here is what they have to say about their maintaining their SLA during this crisis globally:

• We understand the importance of keeping all of your systems up-and-running during this time. We maintain comprehensive business continuity arrangements that are regularly tested as part of our ongoing business continuity and disaster recovery program. We’re actively monitoring our services to ensure we meet our contractual commitments in our service-level agreements (SLAs). And, as many of you would like to understand more about our business continuity efforts, we’ll be sharing a webinar in the coming days that will provide a more in-depth look at our processes.
  
• We also know that, for many customers, this time has meant even more disruption to their businesses, with extreme swings in customer demand and stress on certain channels. That’s why we’re working across product areas where excess capacity may exist to help avoid disruptions, as well as partnering with telco providers to ensure we manage congestion on our networks. For retailers—who have been particularly affected by the crisis—we’ve initiated Black Friday/Cyber Monday protocols, which includes architecture reviews, tabletop exercises, war rooms and more. And, when it comes to service and support, we’ve built redundancy across locations to maintain a consistent experience for customers.
  
• A moment like this is a reminder about how we all need to band together to overcome challenges and complexities. Please find below a set of FAQs on our readiness to support customers during this period. Our teams are here for you, and we’ll continue to keep you updated and informed.

Frequently-Asked Questions:

Q: What is GWS doing to monitor the situation?
A: We are keeping a close eye on developments related to the coronavirus. We are actively monitoring the situation through many trusted information sources such as the WHO. To protect our customers, partners and employees, we’re restricting international and domestic travel, encouraging, and in some cases requiring, employees to work from home, and other measures.

Q: How is customer support being handled when employees aren’t working from the office?
A: We’re running several tests of our support capacity to work from home, and we maintain business continuity arrangements, including to provide ongoing service and support for our customers. In addition, our engineering teams are well-placed to perform their tasks when working remotely. We’re confident that our systems and procedures can continue to support our customers and partners during this time.

Q: Will there be delays in certain project or support resolutions should the situation change in Mauritius?
A: At this stage, we do not expect major delays. There may be slight delays while our teams adjust to their new work arrangements, but we’ll make up for that as soon as possible!
We’re confident that our systems and procedures can continue to support our customers and partners during this time.

Q: Should we expect any disruptions, downtime, or latency in regions affected by the virus?
A: No, at this stage, Google Cloud and other Cloud Providers do not expect any direct user-facing impact as a result of our response to the situation. We will keep customers informed through the usual channels should the situation change.

As usual, should you have any queries or concerns, please do let us know via our Help Desk.

Stay Safe by following these simple instructions from the WHO: