In many ways, a mass notification system needs to be more than just another way to communicate with employees or residents in the event of an emergency.
It needs to be an impossibly reliable, incredibly functional and unflinchingly versatile solution you can depend on when you need it the most. In a crisis situation, absolutely every second counts – people need to know what is going on, what they need to do and how things are changing in real-time.
There is certainly no shortage of mass notification system vendors available to work with in the market today, but this in and of itself presents a fair number of challenges. If you really want to make sure that you’re picking the right provider to meet your needs, there are a few key things you’ll need to keep in mind.
The Key Elements of Mass Notification Solutions
When choosing any type of mass notification solution to act as the backbone of your communications infrastructure, there are a few essential features that you must look for. These include but are not limited to:
- The ability to send real-time alerts via a variety of methods, including by phone, email, SMS and others depending on the needs of the situation.
- The opportunity to send multi-language alerts to address the needs of a multilingual workforce or community.
- The ability to select a geographic area on a map to send alerts to people within that particular area.
- A solution that allows you to reach anyone, anywhere, at any time – whether they’re on-site or in the field.
- The opportunity to send attachments within alerts if needed.
- A solution must also give you the opportunity to track who has accessed alerts as things change.
- The option to combine multiple alerts into a single message as needed.
The Important Questions to Ask Your Vendors
With these key features in mind, there are also a number of important questions that you must ask your vendors before deciding which particular company to partner with:
- “What is your uptime guarantee?” This should be as close to 100% as possible.
- “What is your support infrastructure like?” Never go with a vendor that offers anything less than free 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year support.
- “How do you handle compliance?” Anything less than SSAE 16 SOC 2 compliance is unacceptable.
- “Do you offer support for features like text-to-speech or the ability to record an alert?”
- “Can I use my organization’s enterprise login to access your solution?”
- “Does your solution work with ANY mobile device that my employees may have?”
- “What steps have you taken to make sure that your solution remains future-proof as new hardware is released?”
- “Can I send alerts to recipients sequentially, in their preferred order, instead of simultaneously should I need the ability to do so?”
The OnSolve Approach
At OnSolve, our mass notification system and communication solutions are designed to meet your needs and exceed your expectations every time we’re given the opportunity to do so. We understand that every industry is different, each with its own unique notification and alerting needs. The type of critical information that you’re sharing and how you’re sharing it may vary depending on whether you’re a Federal, State or Local agency, a large Enterprise or a small-to-medium-sized business – but the need to get that information out as quickly as possible will never waver.
This is why we offer a variety of solutions for you to choose from depending on those more specific needs, like our MIR3 Complete Critical Event Management solution for Enterprise environments and CodeRED, a mass notification and alerting system for any agency with rapidly moving, dynamic environments.
Mass Notification System Comparison – How Do Vendors Stack Up?
Deciding on a mass notification system vendor can be overwhelming. Whether you are deciding on a vendor for the first time or replacing a current system it may seem challenging to narrow down the choices.
Download The Comparison
