There has been no lack of lessons learned for employers and organizations when it comes to dealing with the major business disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Many were not prepared for such an upheaval. But this mother of disruptions had led forward-looking businesses to adapt, innovate, and put business continuity plans in place to deal with both the current situation and future incidents. For example, when it comes to communication with employees, members, or mobile workforces and more, the adoption of technology has accelerated, including the use of group SMS text alert and notification platforms to deliver timely and critical messages to these essential groups.

In March and April we had a 40% increase in sign-ups to our own SMS group text messaging platform. The demand was through the roof. What is driving this?

Over the years, the personal use of smartphones and text has grown exponentially. And with that growth, IT, HR and facility managers have been using SMS text alert and notifications as a secure and reliable tool to send urgent messages about office closing due to weather, IT outages, events, or other critical updates to their teams. While email is still the primary tool for internal communication, in an urgent situation, it may not get opened in time. And in an emergency, bad weather situation, or IT outage, timing is everything. With a text message notification service like Simplified Alerts, you can send simple text notifications to groups or teams within the organization from a desktop computer or a mobile phone in a matter of seconds. If fact, 90% of text messages get opened within 90 seconds. It makes sense that companies are now adding in this extra layer, or a stand-by system for communication, to their mix.

And it is not just large or mid-sized companies who are integrating SMS Text Alerts into their communication plan. SMB’s and companies with remote and mobile workforces, property managers with tenants, and local municipalities and neighborhood groups are jumping onboard.

In addition, advanced SMS technology gives employees or group members the ability to respond back as well. Tools, including the Y/N polling, allow for fast feedback. And the Simplified Alerts Check-in tool enables managers to geographically monitor the status of members locally or around the world. Using FTP Data Services, it makes it easy to connect your own backend offices system to update your contact lists in invaluable.

As the world around us changes, the need to securely and quickly communicate to business or organization groups is becoming the new “normal” for internal communications. It is communication insurance for the a post-Covid workplace.