When it comes to incident response, proactive communication is often considered an afterthought. Do you know how you’re going to send emergency notifications to your employees or vendors during inclement weather situations? How will you get the word out if your systems and networks are down? How can you keep your emergency response planning and execution secure?

These questions and today’s rise in security challenges are driving organizations to prioritize planning for emergency communications. Research from the Business Continuity Institute shows that more than 50% of organizations use three or more means to communicate in the event of an emergency.

Still not convinced efficient and effective communication can make or break your emergency response? Here’s a few things to consider:

1. Acting Fast Could Save Your Business

Quick and proactive communication could help you avoid additional damages from an incident, minimize miscommunications impacting business relationships and help contain the scenario by alerting your team to act fast to ensure your employee’s safety and security.

Yet, where most organizations fall short is not having reliable uptimes. In times of crisis, you want to have the ability to confidently send emergency notification messages quickly, at any time on any device.

2. Getting the Right Message to the Right People

Communicating during an incident is not a one size fits all model. Effective communication differentiates what emergency notifications are needed and appropriate for your BCM team, senior executives, all employees and the public. It also takes into account how individuals will receive this message based on their preferred communication channel.

 You don’t want to spend time creating your messaging and distribution plans while an incident is unfolding. By planning in advance and finding a secure software solution, you can tailor your communication strategy to minimize the likelihood of negative impacts and miscommunication.

3. Streamlining Post Incident Auditing 

Having a clear catalog of your communication actions and timelines can help streamline any post incident audit or evaluations. Ultimately, these efforts can help identify opportunities to improve and optimize your incident management plans in the future.

The ability to simplify the administrative duties of pulling in-context reports will offer visibility into your efforts and save time in learning and preparing for the next incident response.

The Best Way to Efficiently and Effectively Communicate:

To improve your incident related communications, consider quickly getting the word out through an emergency notification and response gathering solution. Having the ability to tailor your program’s communications needs and facilitate real time, direct-to-direct contact via a web and mobile friendly tool, ensures you can react, respond to and contain an incident even more quickly.

Convinced that efficient and effective communication is key during disaster situations? Don’t wait to start planning.