The September 11 attacks, a series of continuous four terrorist attacks, led to more than 2,977 victim fatalities, over 2500 injuries, and around $10 billion in property damages.
The recent bushfire is amongst the worst live-fire incidents in complete Australia’s recorded history.
The US underwent weather disasters that cost over $1 billion in 2019.
The property damages and life losses encountered in the above life-threatening disasters could be minimized with a notification system by warning the people about the threat at the right time and ask them to take necessary actions and stay out of danger.
Evolution of Notification System in the Recent Times
As far back as people aced fire, we've had an approach to stay informed about the forthcoming danger and risks. Luckily, we've made some amazing progress since smoke signals. Beginning from the lantern signals to the radio station to TV, the emergency conversation has experienced immense changes, yet the thought has consistently continued as before: security is the priority.
With recent technology innovation, we can make it happen while going beyond anyone's imagination, thanks to the Emergency Notification System (ENS). In the past decade, Emergency Notification Systems have gathered popularity as an ever-increasing number of businesses are investing in crisis avoidance and emergency management tools.
Understanding the Emergency Notification System
The concept of emergency notification system was coined by Dialogic Communication Corporation (now owned by Motorola Solutions) back in the 1980s.
An emergency notification system is an automated platform that enables you to instantly deliver or broadcast a message to a wide audience to alert them about an emergency. You can share important information and announcements over an emergency notification system on any device and over any communication channel globally.
During an emergency or a situation undermining a boundless threat, the first thing you can do is to inform and alarm individuals about the risk instantly. Regardless of whether it's a branch of the government, an SMB, a school, or any association, sharing warning notice and instructions to the people requires instant action. Relying on an emergency notification system caters to all the pain points and enables you to reach a large audience.
Why Go for an Emergency Notification System?
Mass shooting in America that happened in the back nineties is clear evidence that safety concerns can’t be ignored. At this point, universities and other industry leaders seek a strong real-time notification in case of emergencies. In fact, the frequent natural disasters that lead to threatening damages is another reason why there seems to be an urge to go for an advanced notification system.
In the digital age, the term emergency notification system is not at all a new term; instead, over 50% of businesses make use of emergency notification software to keep their employees informed during an emergency. And as many employees are working remotely, it becomes impossible to go with traditional methods of broadcasting a message. Emails and voice calls for informing about an emergency have become obsolete. In fact, the millennials prefer texting and checking push-notifications rather than reading the emails.
As communication preferences have made a rapid shift, enterprises have started investing in these kinds of software solutions and keep the employees aware of the imminent risks regardless of their location or what device they are using.
Features to Expect in an Emergency Notification System
Once you decide to invest in an emergency notification system, the first thing you need to identify is whether the software has all the features it is intended to have?
Well, here is a dropdown that includes the key features that every emergency notification system must have.
Let’s get started!
Multiple Channel Delivery System
If the emergency notification system only supports a limited number of delivery channels, you are directly missing out on the other people who are at risk. Ensure that the system is compatible with all kinds of delivery channels, including text, app, voice, email, and even social media platforms.
Rapid Speed
When we talk about emergencies, it directly indicates that you have got only a few seconds to choose between life and death; if people get the right instructions on time, good enough. But if the user has to go through various steps and clicks, the emergency system is of no use. You need a system that presents the necessary actions right away as soon as the audience receives the notifications. Companies will assure you high speed in their emergency notification software, but the speed usually varies depending on the strength of people you are targeting.
Message Customization
With the varying communication channels, the types of messages also differ. It includes instructions in text form, links, images, and attachments. Depending on the channel, you must be able to customize your message and keep it brief to clearly instruct the target audience.
Easy User Experience
Easier the software is, faster will the user be able to draft the message and broadcast it to the target audience. If the software requires the user to go through a long process and complete complex actions, the message delivery gets delayed, and you might have to compromise with the safety of the public. So, the notification system must offer an easy user experience.
Geo-Fencing
For targeting a group of people from a specific location, especially in case of natural disasters, hazardous material spills, traffic delays, or during bomb threats, geo-fencing is enabled in the notification system. It draws a virtual fence and keeps the people informed who fall in that specific area.
Great Templates
In an emergency, you don’t have enough time to create a message in a stressful situation. If the system has a set of pre-built messages, you can easily send the notification to the target audience in no time and inform them about the necessary actions to be taken.
iOS and Android Compatibility
The majority of the emergency notification systems are designed while considering mobile device compatibility because everyone will check his mobile device during a crisis instead of using any other platform. So, these smart notification systems support iOS and Android devices both so that the notification reaches every single person and keeps him informed about the further steps to be taken.
Two-Way Communication
One-way communication, i.e., simply broadcasting a message to the target audience, is sufficient in the first place. But to improve security factors, many notification systems come equipped with two-way communication. People can ask questions or even upload some photos or videos. Getting answers to these queries will be of great help to the people who are in trouble.
Audience Grouping
Most of the large businesses have multiple locations or have employees working at multiple locations. In that case, you can’t broadcast a message to all of them when the emergency has occurred at a particular place. An emergency notification system enables you to segment your target population so that you can send a notification to a particular group only.
Hassle-free Integrations
The emergency notification system comes up with an easy-to-integrate setup to enable seamless implementation ofthe software with the existing software in your organization. It integrates easily with the software you are already using in your organization. This will keep you out of the hassle and even saves a lot of time while enabling you to manage the operations and other important tasks easily.
Accurate Map View
Whenever an emergency occurs, the majority of the people panic and have no clue where to move and what to do. In that case, the notification system comes equipped with a map view that provides an accurate view to the people on the screen where they can spot the risk-prone areas and move away from those spots and move to a safer place.
Analytics and Monitoring
Simply investing in a notification system and using it for broadcasting the messages is not the end of the game. A notification system allows you to keep track of important things regularly. It helps you evaluate whether the message is reaching the right target audience, and people are receiving the notification at the expected time. Also, how people are reacting to it, and are they even receiving the response at the right time?
How Testing Impacts the Success of a Notification System?
Deploying a notification system is a great step for security reasons and keeps the people informed about security measures. However, if you expect to experience meaningful and effective outputs, testing the notification system becomes a necessity. Carrying out relevant testing is the only step that can turn a notification system into a success.
Executing push notification A/B testing can give you a clear idea about where the software lacks and what are the end-customer expectations. You can overcome those pain points in the first place rather than fixing them after the launch of the software. Moreover, carrying out the right set of testing improves the user experience while turning your software into a success.
Best Emergency Notification Software Solutions
According to the GoodFirms’ list, the top emergency notification software worth trying include Zenduty, AlertMedia, Informacast, Alertus, etc.
Let’s also go through the features of some of the best emergency notification software solutions:
Crises Control
Crises control makes it easy for businesses to carry out healthy and open communication with people by offering a platform to send notifications to an unlimited number of people. It enables people to experience immediate and individual responses via an automatic audit trail. It provides instant notifications to the users while improving the security factors over an automated platform.
DIR-S
DIR-S is a communication system that comes up with primary safety features that can be accessed easily by all the desktop, smartphone, and tablet users. Designed particularly for schools, DIR-S enhances the teacher’s reaction time to stay safe, connects schools, enables interactive maps, and real-time chat functionality.
SimplyCast 360
SimplyCast360 is amongst the leading vendors that offer interactive and multi-channel communication software to global enterprises. The feature-rich solution combines inbound marketing, marketing automation, and interactive communication. The platform enables businesses to reach their target audience via their preferred mode of communication.
InformaCast
InformaCast comes up as software that easily integrates with existing systems, devices, or even signage for a mass notification system to reach a wider audience. With this emergency notification system, users can easily tackle situations while going through important things such as checking who has received the notifications, who all have read it, who all are safe, who needs immediate help and escalate messages to a wider audience. Over this software, users can easily send the message in the form of text, images, message, audio via email, SMS, calls, or even desktop-pop ups.
One Call Now
One Call Now is one of the leading message notification providers in America. It is an ideal option for businesses, schools, churches, and enterprises that helps them streamline and improve group communications by sending voice, email messages, text to a wide audience.
Alertable
Alertable is an emergency alert systemthatisa softwareused to notify people of the natural disasters or hazards caused due to adverse weather conditions. Alterable is the only public alert system that is executed in Canada, and it has over 1,000 municipalities that have already registered over Alterable.
Everbridge Mass Notification
Everbridge Mass Notification enables people to quickly send emergency messages over an intuitive user interface while carrying out a smooth communication. It is a scalable, secure, and reliable emergency management app that allows businesses and even the government sector to send notifications to people or even individuals and keep them well informed before, during, and after the crisis.
The Verdict
An emergency notification system is not only confined to emergencies. It has made lives easy for enhancing workforce communication and keeping them informed about the recent updates and other on-going things in the organization.
The software can preferably act as a unified communication system while sending secure notifications and streamline employee operations. You can easily find a number of software tools online and lookup for the excellent emergency notification vendor.
Invest in software that can cater to your business requirements, help you streamline your communication operations while understanding your target audience. And, if your budget is not very high, you should also check the list of free and open-source emergency notification software to help you with your needs.
If you have used any emergency notification software, do help others by posting a review here!
