Emergency Notification And What You Need To Know

Emergency notification is a critical part of any organization's emergency planning. In this day and age, having a dedicated communications method to contact all of your organization's members is CRITICAL to being able to deal with unexpected circumstances such as a natural disaster or other emergency. When an incident occurs, you need to be able to respond and deal with it immediately - whether your organization is a multinational corporation, university, government agency, or small business. The members of your organization are what matter the most. Taking care of them in a time of crisis is the most pressing concern that the head of that organization has.

With an effective emergency notification system in place, you can sleep well at night knowing that if an unexpected crisis occurs, you will be able to deal with it quickly and efficiently. A reliable, tested emergency notification system is crucial to being able to, for example, notify your entire management team of the situation status, and give ongoing updates as the incident plays out. At the same time, you need to be able to locate employees and receive word back from them to confirm their location and their safety, or whether they need assistance. Emergency notification is essential for any organization of any size that wants to be prepared for unexpected critical events.

--Key Factors to Look for in an Effective Emergency Notification System--

A successful emergency notification system depends on being able to contact people no matter where they are. That means that the system cannot depend solely on one communication modality, such as email. In the event of an emergency, it is certainly not guaranteed that a person will be sitting in front of their computer. Emergency notification depends upon sending out messages across multiple modalities-i.e. email, AND cell phone, home phone, work phone, pager, text message, instant message, BlackBerry PIN message-so that no matter where they are, they are able to get word of a recent event.

Another important feature of any emergency notification system is the ability for the message sender (a manager or president, for example) to get word back from their constituents after sending out their initial message. In the event of an emergency, a manager needs to be able to send a message saying, "There is a power outage on the 12th floor. Please respond to this message by pressing 1 if you are OK, by pressing 2 if you need assistance, and by pressing 3 if you are OK but you are with someone else who needs assistance." That way, you guarantee your ability to have an accurate head count immediately following any unexpected event, and you are able to respond accordingly to those who need help.

Customer service is another very important factor to consider when choosing emergency notification and response services-arguably the most important! The ability to call up your emergency notification provider and have questions answered and a problem solved quickly and effectively is almost too valuable to put a price on. Having any questions about your system explained in an understandable way is crucial to being able to put it to good use in a time of crisis.

When looking into emergency notification, an organization definitely must consider the simplicity and ease of use of the system. It must be reliable and robust, and capable of sending out messages across multiple modalities, and at the same time be simple enough so that any manager or employee who needs to send out an urgent message can do so without any problems.

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