[Use cases] How do businesses communicate during the rapidly changing COVID-19 pandemic

Since the COVID-19 pandemic started to escalate in Australia, our team have received many inquiries on how technology can help businesses and organisations communicate effectively in a rapidly changing situation. Many of them are looking for ways to communicate with staff and customers to ensure everyone is well-informed with the rapidly changing rules, regulations and recommendations. 

There are a few common themes in these use cases and we thought we should share them here to help other businesses and organisations who might also be dealing with the same challenges. 

Ensure staff are healthy and have no cold/flu symptoms 

For sectors such as childcare, schools, mining, utilities and health care, whose operations rely on staff being onsite, it is vital for them as employers to be assured that all staff coming to work are healthy and do not have any cold or flu symptoms. 

In order to do this efficiently, our customers are taking advantage of bulk SMS and a Virtual Mobile Number. In the morning or before every shift, our customers send an SMS to all the staff asking if they have any cold or flu symptoms and if they are ok to take the shift. The staff then reply with a simple Yes or No to the Virtual Mobile Number where the employers or the managers responsible can then act upon their replies. The messages are scheduled to go out automatically each day for managers to check in with their staff and get the most up to date status of roster planning in a quick way. 

SMS Surveys for automated responses 

We are working with some customers who need to direct their staff to the next steps should they reply that they are not feeling well. For those that already have standard procedures in place, the SMS Surveys platform becomes very handy as responses can be sent to the staff depending on their replies. For instance, if they replied that they have cold or flu symptoms, a message about steps to apply for sick leave is triggered and sent to the staff automatically. 

Companies who need to check if their contractors have recently travelled to other countries and need to follow the self-isolation rule begins with a simple question of ‘have you travelled overseas in the last 14 days?’ And if the reply is yes, a message about the self-isolation rule is triggered automatically. 

Communicating the rapidly changing policies

As we battle through the outbreak of COVID-19, there have been many changes in policies, from travel bans to outdoor and indoor gathering rules and restriction of businesses which also lead to all sorts of changes on events and venue operations, as well as visitors policies in aged care and healthcare facilities. 

In order to communicate the most up to date policies to customers and visitors, many of our customers opt for SMS to capture visitors on the go and to ensure that no one will turn up to the facilities or venues without knowing changes have been applied. 

In many cases the use of our Messaging Studio platform is used, providing the capability to send long-form messages via either attaching a PDF file or creating an SMS Landing Page.

Aged care and healthcare facilities are embracing the idea of being able to attach a PDF file to maintain the formality of an official document and the fact that they can still communicate such detailed information using only one SMS credit.

For events organisers and venues, SMS Landing Pages work best for them as they are able to build a page with their company logo, brand colours, images, personalised information as well as call-to-action buttons to direct people for the appropriate next steps. 

Esendex’s reassurance on providing an uninterrupted service

We understand the critical nature of our services to many businesses and organisations in a situation like this where they will need to act quickly and efficiently with the evolving situation around COVID-19 locally and globally. We would like to reassure everyone that the Esendex team is well prepared and that there will be no impact to our services. We have a Business Continuity Plan well in place and are happy to provide a copy or answer any questions or concerns you may have. 

If you have any communications needs and wonder if we can help, please feel free to contact us at 1300 764 946 or [email protected]. We are dedicated to helping all businesses and organisations to battle through this. Stay safe and well.