An emergency or a disaster can have a drastic impact on your organization, but an effective crisis communication system ensures organizational resilience. When you have the proper planning and structure in place, there is no reason to panic in the face of uncertainty.
Creating the proper structure in the event of a disaster means aligning your departments and personnel to maximize effectiveness. Having a crisis communication system in place before you need it, offers maximum resiliency.
Run Drills – Having a crisis communication platform such as Blackberry AtHoc in place will allow you to practice what to do in the face of disaster. Key personnel can run tests, drills and simulations to perfect the response. Simulations of earthquakes, chemical spills or hurricanes, allow you to be prepared and establish the best possible crisis communication plan.
Automatic Detection – Humans are slower than technology when it comes to detecting a disaster. With the right crisis communication system in place, detection is immediate and alerts are automatic. Every second counts when it comes to protecting your business or organization from damage.
Make Critical Decisions in Advance – It’s incredibly difficult to think clearly in the face of immediate pressure. Many crisis communication systems allow you to make some decisions in advance. While there will always be a certain unknown, you can assign key personnel, develop tasks, establish exit routes, create proper communication channels and figure out meeting points – all before a live disruption catches your business or organization off guard. The more planning done beforehand, the better your organization fares in a crisis.
Efficient Communication – With a crisis communication system in place, you can send out communication from your tablet to all departments and personnel. An effective mass notification system like AtHoc Alert can unify all channels and devices. This immediate impact can make all the difference in the world when every second matters.
Enhanced Coordination – The right crisis communication system allows you to collaborate with internal and external stakeholders more easily, and better allocate resources. This has a significant impact on organizational resiliency.
Improved Quality Control – Your crisis communication platform can serve as your eyes and ears for quality control. Let’s say hypothetically, that your supply chain was damaged, the improved quality control from your crisis communication platform can help you turn a long-term problem into a short-term issue.
Improved Knowledge Capabilities – A virtual command center allows your business or organization to stay prepared for a crisis. It removes manual processes at the time of a disaster and eliminates redundancies in your response. The likelihood of human error in your response is drastically reduced with a command center. Shared data allows for a stronger decision-making process, and the ability to bounce back in the event of a disaster.
Accurate Analysis – Strong crisis communication can give you a more accurate window into the scope of the disruption, and allow you to better understand what happened. What parts of your organization were most strongly impacted? How much impact does your disruption have on the external community? An effective crisis communication plan takes these questions into account, so your response better reflects the impact of the disaster.
Understand the Implications – With adequate crisis communication, key personnel can weigh in, to minimize the impact of the disaster. A production manager can provide input where necessary. Key communications personnel can develop an internal and external plan. The right people are involved in the process at the right time, to streamline the flow of necessary data.
Monitoring – Closely monitoring the right factors and metrics in the event of a disruption or disaster, can help you transition into recovery mode faster. The better you understand what happened, the easier it is to minimize damage and prepare for next time.
An effective crisis communication system can make all the difference in the world, in the event of a disruption. Are you prepared? Schedule a demo today.
