Best Practices in Bad Weather? One Call Now Has An Answer
From hurricanes to blizzards (and everything in between) bad weather is a part of nature. So are the challenges of managing the bad weather logistics of protecting your members when harsh weather comes calling. A well-organized plan can minimize confusion and maximize safety, but failure to properly address severe weather conditions can still put your congregation at risk. We recommend following these best practices for communicating with your congregation about closures and other important information during weather-related emergencies.
- Have a plan — and share the plan
A recent Travelers Insurance survey reveals that nearly 44 percent of all small organizations in the U.S. do not have a plan outlining what actions should be taken during a weather emergency. Does your church have an inclement weather policy? If so, when was the last time it was updated? Are your members aware of the plan? Is it on your website? Each of these questions must be answered in order to achieve both clarity and transparency.
- Address the specifics
It’s not enough to have a general plan in place; you must also establish and communicate detailed procedures. When leadership decides to close or delay services or events due to bad weather, does your congregation know how you will communicate this information to them? More importantly, can you trust that they will receive this information as quickly and directly as possible?
- Embrace Technology
Twenty years ago “phone trees” were the only option for communicating with large numbers of contacts — remember them? From miscommunications to the complete breakdown of communications due to a single failure in the chain, phone trees have historically led to more confusion, not less.
One Call Now allows senders to designate subsets of members for mass message delivery. For example, a church can cancel the Youth Ministry Retreat without sending a message to the entire membership base. It allows for easy creation and sending of targeted messages to specific groups.
- Streamline and Save Time
Because there’s no time to spare in an emergency, several additional features make emergency notification systems far preferable to older methods of communication. Any messaging system should offer these advanced functions to further facilitate communications:
- Call scheduling, which lets senders pre-record and store messages to be sent at later times or dates.
- Real-time polling, which offers leaders instant feedback from members via keypad response: this is especially useful for learning if a member needs help or assistance, or for obtaining RSVPs for an event.
- Hot transfer: which allows calls to be automatically transferred to the administrative office at the end of this message.
- Maximize Your Message
In the digital world, shorter is better when it comes to conveying messages and being hi-touch. After all, members don’t want to have to repeatedly listen to a message to be certain that they’ve absorbed every relevant piece of information. While messages should be brief and to the point, subjects should be descriptive and action-oriented — particularly when a response is requested.
While harsh weather can put a damper on services and events, it doesn’t have to have an equally detrimental impact on your overall community engagement. Establishing a clear communication plan and sharing it with congregants is not only beneficial to your house of worship in terms of preventing misinformation, but also protects the safety and wellbeing of your greatest assets, your members.
You can start a free trial from One Call Now: see how easy it is to keep your congregants informed.
