Should your IT services be unexpectedly taken offline, it’s important to have a system in place which alerts staff in the fastest and most engaging way possible. Here’s how SMS will help get your systems back online quickly and reduce inconvenience to your customers.
Alarmingly, 30% of businesses have no disaster recovery in place – this despite the fact that 90% of businesses without a disaster recovery plan will fail after a disaster (source). The latter doesn’t come as a surprise – customers will soon start to knock on competitors’ doors if too much of their time is being wasted waiting for a system or service to be kick-started back into life.
The good news is that the variety of ways service providers can reduce their amount of downtime has been increased by using alerting systems which target engineers’ mobile devices. One such tool is SMS.
What makes SMS so good for disaster recovery and business continuity?
One of the great things about SMS for disaster recovery is that 95% of text messages are read (source) and that 90% of all SMS are read within the first 3 minutes (source). Compare this to something like Email, where under 25% of emails are opened (source), and using SMS for time-critical communications makes a lot of sense.
Statistics like these should give providers confidence that should the worst happen, they have a communication channel in place which will alert their staff quickly and reliably, and get the problem resolved in as short a time as possible.
System / Service Status updates
Next time a system or service goes offline unexpectedly or experiences a security breach, businesses can be prepared to let their service teams know in seconds. Message templates can be set up, which in the event of an outage can be triggered to be sent to predefined lists of staff. This reflex messaging means staff can get on the case much more quickly, and potentially enact a fix before customers start calling.
Staff status checks
SMS makes it quick and easy to check the whereabouts of staff in the event of a disaster. Phone lines can quickly become blocked by multiple calls and emails are easily ignored, so with 85% of the UK’s population able to access texts and the web via their smartphones (source), SMS becomes a sensible choice for effective staff location.
What are the ways that SMS can help?
For businesses who want to deploy mobile-focused SMS messaging as part of their disaster recovery and business continuity plans there are two main options:
SMS Portals
These online environments allow you to send SMS from any computer with an internet connection. Simply log in, define your message (which can be a predefined template if required), define your list of recipients (which can also be predefined) and then hit send.
SMS APIs
APIs allow SMS functionality to be integrated directly into your existing systems. This means that communications can be sent out automatically, the instant that a new incident occurs.
Like to know more?
If you’re interested to know more about how SMS can be used to improve your disaster recovery and business continuity strategies please get in contact with our team today on 0345 356 5758 or email us at [email protected].
