Ensuring Effective Communication during Critical Events: Insights from Everbridge

Foto Everbridge.

Critical events can affect any company. Fast and efficient communication is then crucial. Everbridge, specialist in critical event management, shows how this can be done.​

Severe storms, a fire on company premises, successful cyber attacks: there is a high probability that companies will sooner or later be confronted with a critical event. In order to minimize the damage in such a case, to maintain business operations as well as possible and to return to normality as quickly as possible, companies have to set many levers in motion. One of the most important of these is communication.

When companies fail to communicate in a timely manner during a crisis, they lose control of the narrative. The gap is filled by actors who may not even know the nature of the problem, slowing down the recovery process. Rumors will spread quickly on social media and employees may simply pass on critical information on their own. Or even worse: they make wrong decisions and thereby endanger their health or even their lives.

To prevent this, companies should develop a comprehensive communication plan that can be used in the event of a critical event. Everbridge’s checklist provides a framework for this.

Analyze risks

Organizations should analyze what risks they are actually exposed to and how they will affect their business operations if they materialize. You can then derive targeted communication measures from these analyses.

Clarify responsibilities and processes

Businesses need a dedicated communications team and pre-defined communications plans. It must be clearly defined who is primarily responsible for communication, who controls it, who speaks to whom when, and what information is passed on.

Consider all target groups

In addition to internal contacts, communication with external groups may also be necessary. For example, partners or customers must be informed if they are affected by a critical event. If a company operates a critical infrastructure, there may also be an obligation to report to the authorities.

Create text templates

Templates for notifications help companies to communicate efficiently and correctly in an emergency. Different groups of recipients may need different information, but the core statements must be consistent and must not contain any contradictions, so that in an emergency everyone pulls together.

Communicate multimodally

The more communication channels companies use, the greater the likelihood of actually reaching the target person. The best thing is for the recipients to receive information via all modern channels such as SMS, push notifications, e-mail or voice messages, both on private and work landline and mobile phones.

Practice and test

If companies practice the planned processes without the pressure of an emergency, they have more certainty that everything will work out on day X. Test runs also give them the opportunity to uncover any weaknesses and then eliminate them in a targeted manner.

With a special critical communication system, companies can optimally support the implementation of their communication plans. It allows you to set up and manage rules, policies and templates and automate many processes. You prevent time loss through manual activities, can react faster and exclude human errors that can occur due to the pressure situation of a critical event.

Fast and efficient communication helps companies to keep control over events in times of crisis.

Press Release Everbridge