Are Your Business Communications Prepared For Hurricane Season

http://www.answerfirst.com -- When planning for an emergency, communications are sometimes overlooked with businesses focusing on vulnerability analysis, crisis management, IT restoration and the myriad other factors one must weigh when preparing for the worst. Communications are the lifeblood of every business and a disruption in those services can mean the worst for your business.

Communications are needed to report emergencies, to warn personnel of danger, to keep families and off-duty employees informed about what'ss happening at the facility, to direct response actions and to keep in contact with customers and suppliers. How can you keep the lines of communications open in the event of disaster How will you get in touch with your employees or they get in touch with you How will your customers react if no one answers your phones These are all questions businesses should ask themselves before a disaster impacts your business.

Since disasters come in all shapes and sizes, it is important to plan for all possible contingencies whether the outage is short term or temporary in nature or a total communications failure. The best place to start is to analyze the everyday functions performed by your facility and the communications, both voice and data, used to support them.

First, consider the business impact if your primary communications are inoperable and how that would affect your emergency operations. Vital personnel must first be made aware of an emergency before any emergency contingency plan can be put in effect.

Second, prioritize all of your facility communications. Determine which should be restored first in the event of an emergency.

Third, you need to talk to your communications vendors about their emergency response capabilities in order to establish your procedures for restoring services.

Fourth, you should establish procedures for restoring your communications systems.

Fifth, you should make a determination about the specific needs for backup communications for each business function. There are many options available and the crucial factor is redundancy, do not rely on a single type of backup communication for all of your business functions. Should that single backup communication type fail in the disaster, you's8217;ll have nothing to fall back on.

Here are a few of the communication options one can consider when establishing reliable backup communications:

messengers

cellular telephones

call centers

e-mail

text-messaging

chat

portable microwave

amateur radios

point-to-point private lines

satellite

high-frequency radio

fax machines

dial-up modems

local area networks

hand signals

Remember, more variety in your backup communications means a greater likelihood one of the types will be functional in the event of an emergency. One particularly good type of communication option to examine is text messaging. Even when cellular phones cannot receive voice calls, text messaging to cell phones and pagers will usually still work. This means a call center should be one of your considerations not only because most can handle outbound text messaging, but because they offer many other delivery methods and can communicate with a variety of devices. Some call centers also offer a web interface to collect your messages bringing yet another delivery method to your communication options. A call centers unique ability to convert one type of communication into another type of communication can be key in an emergency, but perhaps most important, there are live human beings standing by 24 hours a day able to react to your needs in a sometimes fluid environment. To learn more about how a call center can help with live operator, IVR, text messaging and web interface message retrieval in the event of an emergency, visit: http://www.answerfirst.com/disaster-readiness.php.

Once you have prepared your contingency plans, establish notification procedures for your employees to report an emergency. Inform employees of procedures. Train your personnel who are assigned specific notification tasks. Post your emergency telephone numbers near each telephone, on employee bulletin boards and in other prominent locations. Be sure to maintain an updated list of addresses, telephone and pager numbers of important emergency response personnel (from within and outside the facility). A company intranet is a great place to post this information as well since employees can many times access this information when not in the office through the internet.

Listen for tornado, hurricane and other severe weather warnings issued by the National Weather Service.

Determine government agencies's notification requirements in advance. Notification must be made immediately to local government agencies when an emergency has the potential to affect public health and safety.

Establish a system for warning personnel of an emergency. This could be an audible or visual warning for personnel in your facility. Whatever type, you should insure the system has an auxiliary power supply. Prepare announcements beforehand which may need to be made over public address systems. Make plans for warning persons with disabilities. For instance, a flashing strobe light can be used to warn hearing-impaired people. Familiarize personnel with procedures for responding when the warning system is activated. Establish procedures for warning customers, contractors, visitors and others who may not be familiar with the facility'ss warning system. Do not forget to establish a method of informing employees, vendors and customers outside your facility of an emergency situation.

And finally, do not forget to test your contingency plans. The best laid plans are worthless if they do not function as needed when a real emergency arises.

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