How to choose an Emergency Notification System

All about Emergency Notification Systems – part 4

Whilst most organisations will benefit from an emergency notification system, it’s worth ironing out your requirements before you start contacting potential vendors. This helps you focus on what you actually need, rather than what the provider is trying to sell you!

Current capabilities – first time users

If this is your first emergency alert service, think about these questions:

How confident are you in your ability to communicate with staff during an emergency?
How do you contact your staff now in an emergency?
What are some of the things that work well for you with your current method, and what are some things that you think could be better?
How much of a priority is it for you to decrease the time it takes to send out emergency messages to your staff?
How would you access staff contact data at the moment if you needed to reach them in an emergency?

Current capabilities – experienced users

If you already use mass notification software, think about these questions:

What is working well today?
How often are you importing your data and the moment, and how long does that take you?
What’s your rough annual spend, and has that always been the cost or is it rising each year?
How much help have you had from your current supplier with things like privacy impact assessments?
How much experience does your current supplier have with the GDPR, the DPA, and other data privacy and security regulations?
If you could change one thing about your existing service, what would it be?
How long does it take to create and trigger an alert, and how quickly are they delivered?

Potential use cases

Depending where your staff are working from, where your physical office locations are based, and the sector you’re working in, the word “emergency” will mean something different to you.

Before investing in an emergency notification service, think about the types of incidents your organisation may be affected by – you can document this as part of a formal business impact analysis, or just start by answering these questions:

Where are our staff working from, and is that likely to change at all?
Are there any specifics in those locations (hurricanes, flooding, staff wellness issues, increased cyber threat due to WFH environments, etc.)?
What situations have happened in the last 12 months where we needed to communicate with some or all of our people?
What systems do we rely on to keep our day to day operations running smoothly?
How does communication fit into our business continuity, emergency response or disaster recovery plan?

Mass notification system

High speed multi-channel alerting, with detailed reports and real-time updates.

Information Hotline

High-capacity inbound hotline for stakeholders to hear your latest update.

Incident Management

Automated workflow rules, with incident logging, management, and trend analysis.

On Call

Add rotas to roles, skills or attributes to target alerts to on call teams.

For more information about Alert Cascade’s products and solutions, please contact the sales department:

Call: +44 (0) 1733 785999
Email: sales@alertcascade.co.uk