Does responding to incidents before they escalate have a significant impact on the wellbeing of all aspects of your property?
You should be thinking this.
Hopefully, it’s a key concern for you too.
Because, not taking the proper measures to protect your customers, staff, and property will eventually catch up to you.
Your team will look underqualified for the job.
Your property will suffer financially.
You, well, you’ll be on early retirement.
We don’t want that for you.
In fact, we don’t want that for anyone on your team or at your property.
It’s a good thing that incident management solutions exist to defend you from the obstacles you and your team might face.
But you don’t have much time to waste. (Any time for that matter!)
So, let’s get started.
INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS ALLEVIATE OVERSIGHTS
We’re going to begin with the incident management system.
It’s your core system.
This is the big piece leading to Proactive Operations.
It’s where you’ll see your troubles start to dwindle away.
First, an incident management system utilizes a real-time dispatch queue.
It’s magnificent because any number of staff – at any number of locations – can simultaneously create, track, and enter details of incidents occurring at your property.
It gets even better.
All the information will update for personnel – in real time.
Imagine sitting in your office, eating some popcorn and watching the mesmerizing capabilities of this solution.
We know, it is mind-blowing.
As incidents are being created and updated, this solution can automatically notify individuals or even groups about the incidents.
You can include specific details, so nothing ever gets missed.
Now, do you really want to make sure nothing gets missed?
Schedule an alert to go out to one or more members of your team.
These alerts can include:
- Specific incidents that were reported
- Incidents that are trending on your property
- Incidents associated with particular locations personnel are monitoring
Detailed and accurate digital records can then be stored for liability defense.
All your bases are now covered.
Your captured records can be further analyzed for ongoing insight now and into the future and beyond.
- Pictures
- Videos
- Statements
- Vital Documentation
All of this can be attached as part of an incident record.
Here’s the kicker.
Everything, and we mean everything, can be accessed today, tomorrow, next month, next year, and even three years from now.
Do you see the benefits of these incident management solutions yet?
The value is endless.
By being able to generate detailed reports as to what, where and when incidents are occurring, you can be close to certain of what will happen in the future.
Your staff will be prepared, proactive, and professional. Call it the three P’s if you’d like.
The value doesn’t end there either.
It’s vital that you understand some more profound benefits of using an incident management system at your property.
Here are three below.
Incident Types Eliminate the Need to Remember Every Protocol in the Book
Staff can set up protocols to display by incident type in the system.
Why is this extremely important?
Your team will know exactly what to do when those specific incident types occur.
They’ll no longer have to dust off or resort to your barely used emergency management binder.
Next, many of the superior solutions use color-coding systems.
Here’s how it works.
Each incident has a different color and is timestamped for its respective purpose.
- Created – Red
- Dispatched – Yellow
- On Scene – Green
- Closed – Gray
This allows your team to see when incidents are sitting in a particular status for a lengthy period.
It’ll indicate that they should contact the personnel associated with the incident.
Mostly, it’s time to check and see if the incident is being or ever was handled.
Visual Cues Prevent Incidents from Going Undetected
There’s an additional visual aid available with these systems.
Certain personnel that is assigned incidents where response times may be critical can be programmed to blink, such as Medical.
When sitting in the created or dispatched status longer than a determined amount of time, the incident will begin blinking.
Critical issues are no longer overlooked, and your team is responding effectively, efficiently and expeditiously.
Properly Allocating Resources Leads to Increased Awareness and Efficiency
Effective resource allocation is a challenge for many professionals.
Agree?
Incident management systems provide you with the ability to track the number and details of incidents assigned to each person or response team.
Details can also be viewed to determine who’d be quickest to respond to an incident.
You’ll have full awareness at your disposal.
MOBILE APPLICATIONS GIVE TEAMS ADDED ADVANTAGE
Incident management mobile applications will strengthen your ability to protect your property and your customers.
Many of these mobile applications can even operate using Wi-Fi or cellular data plans.
How’s that for versatile?
These incident management solutions close a critical communication deficiency for properties like yours.
Pure and simple, time is of the essence.
Your staff needs to spot incidents quickly and report them – even quicker.
It’s important to understand that speed and accuracy of communication is the key to efficiently handling these situations.
This prevents them from escalating.
These applications accomplish this.
It gets better.
Pictures and videos can be sent from many of these applications.
OK.
Now, it gets even better…
Incident management mobile apps promote two-way communication.
Let’s put that into perspective for you.
Once an issue is reported, staff reporting an incident can then be messaged for more information as needed.
How’s that for efficiency?
Not only can there be communication to and from a single device.
All devices in your arsenal can be messaged…and with the same ability to send pictures and video.
Let’s look at a perfect example:
- Your staff in the operations center is sent a picture of a suspicious person
- They immediately send that photo to every device in use on your property
- The suspicious person is apprehended, questioned for proper documentation and then arrested for theft
- Proactive Operations
But, what if you need to do some on-scene reporting while you’re at it? How do you keep your incidents honest?
Innovative solution providers offer tablets, so you can ensure you can capture detailed, on-scene reporting when you and your team need.
Think about it:
These replace yellow notepads.
No more pen and paper!
Many of these applications allow you to:
- Capture notes using voice dictation.
- Take pictures.
- Capture video.
- Capture detailed witness statements and even their signatures for confirmation.
You can go as far as timestamping response times from the device.
The result?
Accurate tracking of incident response times.
Your mobile supervisors will no longer have to rely on old-fashioned communication methods.
You can call it DIY incident management.
REAL-TIME REPORTING RESULTS IN REAL-TIME IMPROVEMENT
Let’s not forget about the valuable data these solutions offer.
We’re sure you’d like to generate one-click reports, primarily when they provide comprehensive stats and insight for optimizing your efforts.
Truly safeguard your property by proactively reviewing incident trends and response times to increase overall performance.
This’ll help you protect your property from liability now and down the road.
Because let’s face it, your goal is Proactive Operations now and down the road, right?
Real-time reporting will help you achieve all your goals.
OVER TO YOU
If you’re in charge of keeping your property and customers safe – you’re relying on the incident management software solutions we’ve outlined in this article.
Doing so helps you to achieve the three goals of all leaders in your industry, reducing your property’s risk, maximizing your customers’ experience, and achieving maximum performance.
So, will you be implementing this software to protect your property and your customers?
Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness and freshness.
