We’ve seen a big increase in usage of the Hyper-Reach system since the Covid crisis began. And while Covid is a terrible thing, we’re grateful that we’ve been able to help our customers to get information out quickly and easily. But not all customers are using the system in the same way, which makes us think it would be useful to list some of the ways agencies are using the system, in case they can inspire some new uses.
Based on the kinds of messages people are sending out, we’ve come up with this partial list of use cases:
- Coordinating staff. You can use Hyper-Reach to inform staff about new developments, organize meetings, send out meeting notes (with our image attachment feature), schedule reminders and much, much more. And with our custom filtering capability, you can designate people as having specific roles, skills, etc. to make quick custom contact lists, even if those roles and skills are useful just for the duration of the crisis.
- Getting status updates from staff. You can quickly send out survey questions to staff and compile their responses all within Hyper-Reach. For example, you could poll workers at vaccination sites to see if they have enough personnel, supplies, etc. and get answers in just a few minutes.
- Sending status updates to the public. Many people are anxious about when vaccines will be available and Hyper-Reach is a perfect way to send out updates on this and other important topics. Double-masking, for example, is a great new topic where you can send out the latest recommendations and research.
- Scheduling last minute vaccination appointments. We’ve seen hundreds of stories about last-minute opportunities to get people vaccinated and the challenges of scheduling people with just a few hours notice. For example, let’s say you have a last-minute opening to give 50 people a shot that day. With our two-way messaging and quota settings you can have Hyper-Reach start calling a wait list of hundreds of people, asking if they can make it to the vaccination location in the next few hours. Then, once you’ve reached your 50 person quota, the system automatically stops calling.
- And remember our “text to sign up” feature, where a citizen needs only to text a specific phrase – for example, “CovidUpdates” – to our signup number to subscribe to a special interest list and get information specific to that topic.
With so many possible uses, it’s important to note that this is the perfect time to encourage citizens to register for emergency alerts – both on our standard web form and on any special interest lists you want to create. So we’ve created some templates for press releases, social media posts (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), and email messages you can modify and use to promote signups in your community.
Let us know if you have any suggestions about how to use your emergency notification system or get folks signed up. We’re always looking for new ideas we can share.
