Adverse weather is a fact of British life. So why does it always seem to take us by surprise?

“As always you have provided a fast and responsive service enabling us to send a text message about the current severe weather to our field based teams. Thanks for your help” - Npower

Sometimes it takes something that affects us all to show just how clever a solution can be. When the country was panicking about the snow, some organisations were already reassuring customers and instructing staff by communicating through SMS and other mobile communication - even when there were no phone lines and no electricity.

When power and landlines are down, your mobile becomes your lifeline. United Utilities keep customers informed by using SMS to communicate with them.

When heavy snow forced Middlesbrough FC to cancel their North Riding Senior Cup game they needed a quick way to alert all their staff. Using Rapide they were quickly in action and sent out text messages to all staff straight away.

Yvonne Ferguson is impressed with the service.

“It literally took 5 minutes to sort out from beginning to end and the staff at Rapide were very helpful. This service has saved us considerable time. I would definitely recommend this service.”

AstraZeneca have a dedicated phone line used to update all employees in the event of any adverse weather conditions. They can announce how to react, company policy and even organise staff enabling work to continue effectively and efficiently.

It’s not all about snow…

Around 5 million people live in flood risk areas in England and Wales. The Environment Agency send a text to warn people who live in high risk areas before it’s too late.

Jim Crothers from the Environment Agency is impressed with the service from Rapide.

“Text is a very important channel of communication and a big growth area. More and more people will opt to use it as their first choice to receive warnings.”

In 2007 the Vodafone headquarters were hit by floods and their offices had to be evacuated. Luckily Rapide’s Team Call & Listen (combined with voice and text alerts) is part of Vodafone’s crisis communication plan and kept thousands of staff up to date so that they knew what to do.

Weather is just one type of incident that challenges your traditional communication channels. You’ll know times in your own business when staying in touch can make or break your customer’s experience.

With the snow set to return on Wednesday (20th Jan 2010) are you prepared?


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