Expect the Unexpected

No matter who you are or what your organization does, we all have our off days when, for one reason or another, things don’t go right – or just totally fail! Whilst we can all hope for the best, the reality is that we should plan for the worst. And we can’t just look internally within our organisations, map every single process and plan for every possible adversity thrown up by that exercise. External circumstances come along which practically nobody could ever have foreseen. The pandemic was the perfect example of this. Or more accurately, the rather haphazard disconnected strategies employed across the world in an attempt to minimize its spread.

Businesses in many ways lay helpless, at the mercy of imposed regulations which sometimes appeared to change as frequently as the wind changes direction, devoid of consistency which organisations crave. Another very different example is the not so humble volcano. Or, rather more accurately, what happens when once wakes up full of energy…

One of nature’s most amazing phenomena surely has to be the volcano. Erupting and in full flow, whilst mesmerizing to look at from afar through our tablet or television screen, just imagine what must go through your head when things are a little closer to home. When one erupts somewhat unexpectedly on your doorstep whilst you are just trying to get on with your daily life or have travelled abroad to enjoy a nice few days soaking up some well needed sun before the gloom of winter sets in. That’s a whole different ball game. That has to be plain scary. But indeed, exactly that has been happening on the Spanish island of La Palma in recent weeks. Tourists and inhabitants alike have been evacuated. And communication is never more important than during a genuine life or death crisis like that.

A look around the world at the emergency warning systems, so many governments have put in place to warn their populations of impending natural disasters (or those happening for which there was practically zero or indeed zero warning) like tsunamis, flooding, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and anything else you can think of natural or unnatural, can actually provide some wonderful lessons for any organization to learn from. No matter its size or what it does.

During situations where human lives are at stake, it’s only natural for a heightened sense of fear to take over. That fear can quickly overcome rational thinking and behaviour, often paralysing people. During these times in particular, it can be the difference between life or death if a warning does not get through. Rapid and accurate dissemination of content in a super clear and easily understood manner is therefore paramount, and so often text messaging can prove to be an amazing solution here. But having a multi-channel solution at your fingertips has to be something you have too.

Text messaging means different things to different people but primarily we’re talking SMS here. It could also be chat apps like WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram or Viber. Texting is understood by quite literally billions of people globally. It’s something they are just so comfortable with that is make it THE channel to use when you need to grab their attention.

Over 5 billion people globally have access to SMS and about half the world’s population own a smartphone. The beauty about SMS though is that no smartphone is required by the recipient and no internet access is required whatsoever. A stable internet connection is the last thing one should assume for any major emergency situation! To those of you out there that say mobile messaging is not a life-or-death issue, we disagree. You need to ace it and your client engagement. Not doing so can result in the death of your business too. Don’t forget voice or even email though. All have their place when used properly in the correct circumstances but IF you need to rely on one digital channel to communicate with as many people at once as fast as possible, make it SMS.

You’ll have heard of the old adage ‘perfect planning prevents poor performance’. Well, whilst we agree it is a very good idea to be always prepared as much as you can be and in a constant state of readiness, you’ve got to face up to the fact that sometimes curveballs come at you hard and fast that you weren’t expecting. And those really do come in threes too…

Being agile is key and in times of uncertainty, with constantly shifting sands, it is even more important that you keep all your stakeholders updated. Whether it’s your customers, your own team members or even suppliers, what people really look for is information. Being kept updated, informed. How many times have you personally experienced this? We would unfortunately hazard to guess the answer here is ‘too much’.

?Whatever your business and whatever the use case(s) you may have in mind, we are sure text messaging can be very helpful to you and if you are not using it today, you absolutely should be. In fact, only 3% of registered businesses are using it today, which means so many are missing out on its powers. Don’t be one of the 97% missing out.

?Here at Intis Telecom, we’ve made it our business to deliver content rapidly and accurately globally for over a decade, text messaging being the primary channel we utilise. It’s easier than you think to implement in your communications stack, and we can show you exactly how. Don’t sit this one out. You can’t afford to do so. Get in there now and start using SMS and chat apps to engage with your clients. We can guarantee the only thing you’ll regret is not having done so a lot sooner!