18 Ways Incident Management Systems Create Order (and Why It Matters)

If worse comes to worst you want to be able to protect your guests from the potential hazards occurring at your venue.

You’re like a teacher protecting your students. In the midst of all the chaos and unruliness, it’s still your job to create order and protect them from outside influence and one another. How you organize your initiatives affects your students in the long run.

Let’s take a page from the book of Nick Nolte’s character in Teachers and apply it to incident management.

How do you do this?

Start connecting and identifying with your students [guests]. In the end, what matters most is your ability to provide your guests with a remarkable experience.

As overseer of Murphy’s Law for your venue, we’d say it is imperative you understand the many ways your incident management system (IMS) can influence your operation and the guest experience.

Don’t have an incident management system? We’ll get you up to speed on how an IMS can create order amongst all the chaos at your venue.

When we’re done you’ll be rather privy as to why using an IMS is vital to the success of your operation – and why it matters so much.

An Incident Management System Moves You from Chaos to Order

Whether you currently use an incident management system or not, we’re positive you’ll see how valuable these systems can be for you.

For current and future IMS users alike, all 18 ways can and should be used as a benchmark for your system. Use them to determine what your system offers you now and how you can improve the value of it miles down the road.

If you’re in the process of choosing a system, use this list as guidance to make sure the system you find answers ‘yes’ to providing you with all we’ve presented below.

1. Instant communication. The ability to enter details and the status of an incident via text, email or mobile handheld devices immediately.
2. All your staff can manage incident details from multiple locations. When a user makes or updates an entry in an IMS, it immediately appears on all screens for staff that have permission to see them.
3. Segment ALL your departments. Permissions allow your staff to see what they need to see. Segmenting information keeps people organized – order.
4. Organize and color code your incidents by status. In an IMS incidents are color coded by status so nothing gets overlooked or omitted.
5. Eliminate pen and paper with a digital paper trail. All of your communication, incident details and related documents are stored and can be accessed at any time in the future to protect your venue from potential liabilities. You won’t need to stress about finding paper reports in a folder from three years ago, in a file cabinet, in the farthest corner of the universe.
6. Link your related incidents. When incidents come into an IMS – separately – BUT are connected, they can be linked to keep a full record. More linking, less looking…YES.
7. Lock incident details from being tampered with. Locking incidents prevents staff from accidentally or purposely changing the details of an incident. An IMS lets you avoid “It wasn’t me” all together!
8. Customization at your fingertips. Easily create custom fields for incidents related to your venue so that you’re always documenting information specific to YOUR venue.
9. Alerts and notifications for few or many incident types. Scheduling and sending alerts to multiple staff members is easy-breezy. When a specific incident is reported, a message is remitted to associated need-to-know members of your team.
10. Manage your protocols, processes, procedures, rules – no matter what you call them. Set up your protocols to display in your system – by incident type – so that your staff know exactly what to do when things ‘go south.’
11. Allocation of your resources. View the number and details of incidents assigned to each of your departments and rapid response teams. This helps you determine who might be the quickest to respond to an incident.
12. Task management at its finest. Send automatic notifications by text, email or mobile handheld device to your staff. No more sleeping on the job…remind them when tasks are due AND know they’ll get the assigned tasks completed. We know accountability when we see it, especially when there’s a digital record of it!
13. Database of persons associated to previous incidents. Store and easily access information of persons previously involved in incidents. Whether you’re encountering a repeat offender or a valued guest that keeps experiencing the effects of unruly behavior, you’ll be armed with the right information to make an informed judgment call.
14. Sending reports to your boss with one click. Reporting features allow you to pull any and all information from these systems. Customize data the way you need to, and then send it off to your boss. Prove your system’s ROI.
15. Input incidents with ease. You don’t need to walk around aimlessly with pen and paper to document incident details. You also don’t need to lose hair over dispatching incidents within an adequate timeframe, because with an IMS you can create an incident and dispatch it IN SECONDS.
16. Training so your staff uses the system. Having and using a system where your staff is trained to properly use it helps maintain order. If you don’t have a solution provider that helps you COMPLETE your implementation and doesn’t give your team ongoing support and training…start looking for a new one. They won’t be helping you leave a legacy. Trust us.
17. No CMMS required to run your IMS. A web-based solution allows you to remove your IT department from the equation. You don’t need your IT department or a maintenance team to conduct equipment inspections or scheduled updates!
18. Grow your IMS better than Jack. You know, the Jack who grew the beanstalk. He put the seed in the ground AND POOF. Yes, that one! Well, with progressive IMS providers you can grow your operation even easier than Jack did. Scalable systems adapt to YOUR needs.

Two Birds, One Stone, Zero Stress

Creating order doesn’t stop at order itself. What truly matters is what you get from all the order: continuous analysis of your response times, resulting in a positive guest experience.

An IMS gives you analytics to help you respond to more incidents in less time, making all the difference. Using your analytics to measure your team’s performance over and over again will have positive long-term effects.

Push your team to deliver an experience for your guests that results in them evolving from guests to loyalists.

Yikes!

We completely forgot…there are 19 ways an IMS creates order. #19 – It eliminates stress! You know we’re advocates of a stress-free work environment.