In this week’s past news about the times square car bomb, oil spill in the gulf of mexico, and Nashville flooding, Americans have unfortunately confronted the fears of terrorism, environmental disaster, damage to the economy and personal property and loss of lives.
I just watched Michael Deppisch’s beautiful YouTube montage of the Nashville flooding, whose stunning photography and moving portrayal has basically made it viral. After watching the calm scenes as the flood begins to subside, one wonders – what should we do on the day after the storm. For those directly effected, the answers are quite complex. What about the Americans who sit in the comfort of their living room or office watching the YouTube videos of the Nashville flooding one after another?
When natural disasters occur, people like to take action. Donating to the American Red Cross is an obvious first step. But how can you internalize the message of the Tennessee flooding in the day to day business of your own SMB?
Emergency Notification
The Nashville Flooding reinforces the importance of implementing an emergency notification program for your SMB. Let’s take a look at some key features of emergency notification system providers, as seen on websites of emergency notification system providers.
In the Aftermath of Emergency
- ReadyAlert’s Story tells the experience of its founders, who witnessed the importance of emergency notification first hand during 9/11. They recall:
“Several of their associates who had escaped before the second plane hit the first tower, and were able to send text messages to family, friends, and office associates to let people know they were safe.
Having lived through this disaster and having analyzed the aftermath of this tragedy, the founders of ReadyAlert decided that a text-based emergency response notification service was not just a good business opportunity but a critically needed service; and so ReadyAlert™ Services, LLC, was established to meet that need.”
Statistics and the Business Imperative
- Everbridge, one of the leading providers of incident notification, brings us the statistics to convince businesses to get started, “Did you know that 62% of organizations experience between one and five interruptions in a year?* From power outages to network failures and winter storms to hurricanes, interruptions are as common as they are costly. An organization’s lack of preparation or poor response to an emergency can result in loss of life, property damage, thousands or even millions of dollars in lost revenue or reparation costs.” So what’s the business imperative? Everbridge states the logistical importance of incident notification, “When disaster strikes and every second counts, organizations need to focus on the mission-critical tasks of ensuring the safety of their people and continuing operations, not on managing the logistics of communications.”
Liability Protection and Business Efficiency
- One Call Now’s automated phone message service highlights the liability element: “It pays to be prepared, not only for peace of mind but to protect you and your company from liability.” Many times small businesses have a hard time understanding the importance of investing financially in emergency notification (like paying an extra insurance plan before the emergency hits), but in this case businesses can actually benefit from the full range of services both in their day to day business and in the case of emergency. The One Call Now CEO’s blog post “Because You Never Know What Might Happen” tells some powerful examples that drive home the importance of investing in emergency notification. In addition, One Call Now’s website also highlights the fact that many emergency notification providers also offer outbound notifications to increase the day to day efficiency of businesses. One Call Now gives businesses the ability to utilize the services of one reliable provider, both for daily voice broadcasts and for cases of emergency.
Back to Cloud Telephony
- Cloud telephony’s the low costs, easy implementation, and constant accessibility from anywhere, all draw an intuitive application of hosted IVR to the emergency communication space. As IVR becomes more accessible to small businesses, and outbound notifications become more reliable, businesses will discover increasing simplicity in setting up an emergency plan.
- Some cloud telephony providers, such as Angel and Call Fire already offer emergency notification plans as part of their hosted IVR.
Related posts:
- What’s Your Emergency Plan for Voice Communication?
- Angel.com’s IVR System Simplifies Registration for Notify NYC
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