Nick Milos, who manages corporate emergency operations for the Port of Seattle, states, "We saw the value of Send Word Now and have been able to use it as a means of reliably activating our policy room should an emergency be declared. We now have a very easy, quick way to get in touch with all the members of the corporate emergency team. The primary value of Send Word Now is the absolute swiftness of notification. In a recent test we sent an announcement out to twenty top executives, and nineteen of the twenty responded within fifteen minutes."
Milos contrasted this to the older system where a dispatcher would be called to notify a duty chief. The duty chief would then pull out a spreadsheet and manually start calling numbers, often not getting through and having to leave messages. He describes this as a very time-consuming, cumbersome and stressful process, and lauds the vast improvement with Send Word Now's Smart Alerts.
Ernie Hayden, chief information security officer, adds, "I was given the task to implement Send Word Now at our 24-hour airport operations facility -- the Airport Communications Center (ACC) -- to replace our less than reliable paging system. The ACC uses Send Word Now to notify people of emergencies such as a fuel spill or a security breach, and for routine alerts such as minor flooding and snow removal. Send Word Now is becoming a very nice, layered communications tool for us. Now the police and fire department are starting to use it, and seaport security wants to implement Send Word Now. So, it's rapidly moving out into the organization."
Hayden added, "With Send Word Now, you have many options on how to initiate messages. You can use the web-based capability, the quick send code, you can do it by email, use a Treo, or by calling the operator. Those are pretty impressive capabilities someone thought through the idea, 'How in the world can I get a hold of everyone and get this message sent out when it's really urgent?'"
