cxLoyalty

When managing a crisis, the command center is the heart of the operation. How effective and efficient it performs can affect the level of impact the crisis has on your employees and organization. In the last couple of years, many crisis management plans have moved towards virtual command centers versus physical command centers.

In response to COVID-19, many organizations have been forced to adapt and operate with a virtual command center, whether they planned for it or not. cxLoyalty has migrated to a virtual command center model over the past few years and, as a result,our crisis management plan is more effective. The key to our success has been our use of technology and embracing collaboration, specifically through Microsoft Teams. With this tool, four functions of our command center operations were enhanced: Resource Coordination, Situational Awareness, Communications and Security.

Resource Coordination

In a crisis, response time needs to be timely and quick. To achieve this, crisis management plans need methods to reach the crisis management team and to keep contact information current. We found that a collaboration tool can help streamline these areas: 1. The collaboration tool can reside on all employee devices; PC, laptop and mobile phone(s). 2. The employee contact information already normally part of the Human Resources’ system can be loaded into Active Directory and then be accessed by the collaboration tool.

These capabilities allowed us to rally the right employees with a meeting invitation containing a one-step link to join the meeting from any device. Once in the meeting, if the team finds they need the input of another subject matter expert, the employee can be called directly from the tool and automatically joined into the meeting.

“A collaboration tool has allowed our team members to video conference in real time, just as if they were physically together in a command center to discuss the incident”

Situational Awareness

To make decisive decisions and take appropriate actions in a timely manner, the crisis management team needs information about the unfolding of the event, the impacts and the resources needed. This information is gathered through the initial assessment of the incident and ongoing checkpoint meetings.

A collaboration tool can help facilitate this process throughout the life cycle of the incident. For example, imagine the crisis management team is virtually assembled to assess the impact of internal flooding at a company facility. While using the collaboration tool, an on-site facility manager can use their phone to walk through the facility to share the damage in real time with the team. Based on what the team has observed, they make decisions on the next steps to take. Later, they get together for a checkpoint meeting and evaluate the progress. Once again, the facility manager walks around the facility, sharing video within the conference call. At the same time the video is being shared, another member of the crisis management team can record the footage which can then be utilized for an insurance claim later.

Communications

Communications is an essential function of a crisis management team. To respond quickly and appropriately, requires a two-way flow of information among the crisis management team members and the ability to use multiple communication channels to facilitate that interaction.

A collaboration tool has allowed our team members to video conference in real time, just as if they were physically together in a command center to discuss the incident. At the same time, the chat feature allows further collaboration through comments, snippets of digital information or documentation to be shared real time, which facilitatesthe decision-making process and determines the response actions to be taken.

When the crisis management team is not meeting, the tool can be used to organize stored documents that can be referenced at any time by any of the members. This allows incident dashboards and incident specific tracking logs to be readily available. Members don’t have to wait on that email to arrive in their Inbox or search for the email among all the other emails they are receiving.

Security

In designing a command center, physical security has always been an important requirement and function to protect employees and the information associated with an event. It still is with a virtual command center. A collaboration tool allows you to invite people to meetings and see real time who is participating throughout the meeting. People cannot join without an invitation. Only the people specifically invited will have access to document folders setup for the team or within the meeting invite itself. However, even with these capabilities and in this digital age of cybercrime, it’s important to continue to take the necessary precautions to protect your information with the use of password protecting and/or encrypting.

In conclusion, an important objective for a crisis management plan is to protect your employees, your business and your partners. As mentioned previously, the command center is the heart of your crisis management plan. It needs to operate as simply and efficiently, as possible. One way to do this, is to keep your command center tools to a minimum. Identifying tools like a collaboration tool that has multiple capabilities could reduce the tools needed and will strengthen the command center functions to be more effective and efficient.