Sky launches free support service for visually impaired customers

To celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Sky Ireland has today announced the launch of a new free support service for visually impaired customers, powered by ‘Be My Eyes’. Be My Eyes is a free app that connects blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers and company representatives for visual assistance through a live video call.

Visually impaired Sky customers will now be able to access customer support via live video calls with Sky’s Accessibility customer support team. Through these live calls, the customer support team can look at tech set up for Sky TV and Sky Broadband and help to set up or resolve any technical issues, experienced by the customer.

Speaking about the new offering David Nason, Sky Ireland’s Accessibility Lead and accessibility advocate, said:

“Sky has always been a champion of inclusivity and we always strive to ensure that all of our customers’ needs are met. We’re incredibly proud to be the first telecommunications company in Ireland to integrate the Be My Eyes app into our customer service offering and provide essential assistance to all Sky customers. Be My Eyes means we can now offer specialised assistance and technical support to visually impaired customers when they need it, through live video calls.”

Sky has already taken a number of important steps towards inclusivity, with Sky Glass and Sky Q offering features such as ‘Voice Guidance’ and ‘Voice Control’. These features provide navigational guidance for people with a sight impairment, enabling them to find what they are looking for with helpful audio cues. Other accessibility features available include audio description, high contrast, subtitles and highlighting of shows in the TV Guide which have audio description, subtitles or sign language to make them easier to find.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day takes place on May 18^th and focuses on driving awareness for digital access and inclusion for the more than one billion people who live with disabilities or impairments.

For further information, please contact: rachael.cleary@fleishmaneurope.com

About Sky

Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of the Comcast group. Across six countries, we connect our 23 million customers to the best entertainment, sports, news, arts and to our own award-winning original content.

Following the launch of Sky Glass, we now offer customers our strongest ever line-up of products and services. As well as the new TV with Sky inside and everything integrated, customers can enjoy the award-winning Sky Q with all your favourite channels and apps in one place, and with Sky Go you can now access an even better experience on your devices. Sky TV has new channels, new shows and new deals with Peacock, Paramount+ and apps including Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, Spotify, YouTube, ROXi, Highbrow, Fiit, and more. Our streaming service, NOW, brings viewers all the enjoyment of Sky with the flexibility of a contract-free service.

We believe that we can be a force for good in the communities in which we operate. We’re committed to being Europe’s first net zero carbon entertainment company by 2030. We take pride in our approach to diversity and inclusion: we’ve been recognised by The Times and Stonewall for our commitment to diversity, and we’ve set ambitious 2025 targets to continue to increase diversity and representation.We’re also committed to investing £30million across our markets to improve our approach to diversity and inclusion, and to tackle racial injustice.

Sky employs just under 1000 people in Ireland with over 750 of those based at its Head Office in Burlington Road in Dublin. As part of our Sky Cares programme, we partner with charities & organisations across Ireland to support their aims & goals, whilst giving back to the communities where we live and work. In 2021, Sky Ireland became Primary Partner of the Republic of Ireland Women’s National Team.

About Be My Eyes

Be My Eyes is a free mobile app with the goal of making the world more accessible for blind and low-vision people. The app connects blind and low-vision individuals with sighted volunteers and companies from all over the world through a live video call. Since launching inBe My Eyes launched in January 2015, currently 6,530,933 volunteers have signed up to assist blind and low-vision users. Be My Eyes users can request assistance in over 180 languages making the app the biggest online community for blind and low-vision people as well as one of the largest micro-volunteering platforms in the world! Every day, volunteers sign onto Be My Eyes to lend their sight to blind and low-vision individuals to tackle challenges and solve problems together.