How Discreet staff communications can drive safety and improvements in business
No matter what industry you are in, there is a good chance that certain areas of your business use or would benefit from discreet and onsite communications between customers or staff. Let’s look at a few areas in which discreet communication is common, but not always in all businesses.
* Security systems available
* Customer handover between staff
* Handling of complaints
* Emergency communications
It’s possible to find other business areas that might benefit from discreet communication. These areas are vital for business. However, some of the points mentioned in the previous headings may not be obvious. Let’s take a closer look at each one. Also you can see details of any company by doing a company name check here.
Security Systems
Security solutions are crucial depending on the circumstances. They have been long known for their discreet communication. It might not be a good idea for staff to announce to the world that someone has stolen company property. This would alert the thieves! How many times have there been instances when a theft has occurred in a business, and staff simply use two-way radios to communicate with security personnel? This is not the best solution.
In many cases, the radio implementation is imperfect so customers cannot hear what’s going on. You might consider using quality microphones and earpieces. They can be hidden almost completely from view, but communicate extremely well in noisy environments. Two-way radios with security buttons that can be programmed to send messages to other radio users, without being heard, are some of the latest alternatives.
On-site paging systems, another communication technology, are being increasingly used to integrate alarm systems to notify staff of security issues discreetly. The problem will be made known to staff, but customers or anyone else won’t. Customers can communicate with customers later, if necessary. A custom transmitter that has 7 contacts can be integrated into most security systems is one solution. This unit can send confidential information to staff about security issues. There are many options for triggering messaging, including push buttons that can send different messages to staff.
Employee Handover of Customers
You may have noticed that some customers are often transferred from one task to another in businesses. In the UK, for example, customers who come to an optician for an eye exam are received at reception and taken to the waiting area. When the optometrist arrives, the customer is then taken to the test room where they are handed over by the front desk staff.
Many optometrists will leave the room after the eye test and hand the customer over to sales personnel. Customers can then choose the frames they want and place their order.
One well-known optician decided that it was better to have the sales staff take the customer out of the testing room than for the optometrist. How could this be done? The optometrist places a push for service button in the test room that can send one or more messages.
Once the message is received, the optometrist simply calls the sales team with the appropriate message to a discreet and convenient text pager. In reality, several members of the sales staff can be messaged. The first person to respond ‘cancels’ the call to the room, and the rest of the sales staff are allowed to continue their work.
This solution is ideal for opticians because both the trusted optometrist and the less trusted sales staff, as well as the customer, all end up in the same test room. It’s an excellent example of how to handle customers in this sector. This system increases the closing rate and profitability of the company. Customers are not even aware that it exists.
You could probably think of other situations in business where a similar situation could be improved, as the opticians’ entire business with hundreds of sites. This was possible thanks to discreet paging systems for staff.
Push for service button buttons can be used to contact sales managers to discuss ‘hot deals’ with customers. The customer is unaware that the sales representative called the sales manager to make the deal close. The sales manager then offers to sweeten the deal with carpets or petrol to help the customer. This could only be done with discreet messaging, and the paging platform is ideal for such needs.
Handling of complaints
Customers complaining about management in a business setting is worse than being surrounded by customers. We can all agree that unhappy customers can be a problem for businesses trying to create a great customer experience. It’s essential to resolve complaints quickly with Trust-pilot, but if negative experiences are shared on the internet, it can be costly for businesses.
There are few options that customers have to use to let management know they are unhappy and to also resolve the problem without making a scene in front of others. Have you ever used one?
There was an old solution that could be used for restaurants, but it was also possible to use in other industries. It was a tip tray which was later updated to an iPad. After the meal was over, the tip tray was filled with the bill and the customer was asked to complete the electronic questionnaire.
The key questions were used to determine whether the customer was satisfied or not. The last question asked by the customer was ‘Would your friend recommend you?’ The manager was notified discreetly if the customer stated that they would not recommend a friend.
The manager could then visit the client in a non-confrontational manner to ask the customer if everything was okay. He then offered the customer a discount coupon. The manager was able to resolve any problems, and he also had the chance to “turn the customer around” from a unhappy customer into a customer who would return. Negative feedback from customers can lead to a lot of problems. Unfortunately, the survey solution described above was not implemented.
Today, there are mobile applications that allow customers to complete a similar survey. If the customer is not satisfied (using the same careful key questions in this survey), then the manager will send an SMS to his phone. However, this is less immediate than the on-site solution and may sometimes take longer to notify the manager.
The customer might also have left the premises. There could also be issues with the phone coverage, or the customer might not want to install the app (especially relevant for over 55’s as only 25% of them install apps).
Although there may be other solutions on the market, they are not yet available in large numbers. This is certainly something to think about and the comments regarding customer complaints handling are at least something to contemplate.
Communications in an emergency
It is a fact that emergency resources on-site are crucial to saving lives. It is important to consider things such as staff shortages, power outages, fire, flood, and other factors that may affect the efficiency of an emergency service. With today’s dangers, who knows what emergency services might be faced with? Terrorists, flood, personal injury, flooding or building collapse, explosion, and a host of other situations. Let’s not forget nerve agents! Are you prepared? Are your solutions able to meet all these extremely difficult emergency needs?
If you run a small business or a school, it is likely that some of the above may not apply. Only you can decide. Consider a situation where someone is hurt in the course of their daily work. It is vital to get help quickly. This has been proven time and again to save lives. Emergency call buttons that send emergency teams messages have been proven to be very effective in the UK, and have saved many lives.
This is a more pertinent topic than ever. Lockdowns can be for many reasons, including dangerous dogs on the premises, dangerous or threatening persons (even parents). Schools and universities are subject to many different aspects, including fire, water damage, and other hazards. Academy Lockdown offers a variety of solutions to shut down schools and universities effectively while keeping children safe. NaCTSO: The National Counter Terrorism Security Office is a police unit that supports ‘protect and prep’ elements of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy. It also has a website with advice.
Local councils can provide guidance to establishments regarding lockdown and how to evade threats. Most councils provide guidance to help you develop a sound procedure. For more information, please contact your local council.
There are many communication options that can be used in almost any situation.
* Two-way wireless radio
* Paging systems
* Internet and the ‘internet of things’ related systems
Wireless two-way radios can now be used for much more than just radio talk. There are many options available, including radio to phone (mobile or landline), radio to email, and many other. There has been an explosion in features that digital radio handsets with modern technology have included as standard. You can also secure any transmission using effective encryption, which is almost impossible for third parties to decrypt. Wireless radios offer many features, including alarm handling, teleconnection, nurse call and radio management.
They also have remote monitoring and fleet management. Signage integration, live updates, power monitoring and social monitoring are some of the other features. Radios can be an integral part of any solution called “internet of Things”.
Any radio system based upon specialised items like TETRA and SEPURA is one of the most secure wireless radio communications systems around. While these solutions are often used by fire and emergency services (or councils), they can also be used by larger organizations with obvious benefits.
Many people consider pagers to be “old technology” and that is true in some respects. But today, things are very different. Cloud-based communications have made it possible to move up to the 21st Century, especially in security and lockdown. While a pager is still a pager, they are merely receivers.
With few exceptions, the message can be sent to other pagers. The pager is not the focal point of the communication chain. It simply displays the information received, encrypted or not. There is equipment that can monitor a ‘closed’ or open connection, and this product could be called the ‘internet-of-things’. It is possible to send messages over the internet and back to equipment on-site. The message could then be sent as an encrypted pager to all parties. It is very discreet, which is a benefit. There are so many systems available that it is beyond the limitations of this document’s scope.
However, the internet and the “internet of everything” have made rapid progress in security and emergency monitoring as well as lock-down. Systems with the right technology, such as BLE Bluetooth Low Energy (Version 5) and above, are leading the charge. Bluetooth technology has been limited historically in terms of range. Many products today still use older Bluetooth technologies.
The range limitation has been reduced to 30m with the newer BLE. This is a significant improvement over the older technology. BLE can track people, assets, changes in state, humidity, water intrusion, G force, sound and vibration. BLE technologies are a cutting-edge solution for businesses. BLE’s importance cannot be understated. BLE technology will be used in every industry, including yours.
It is important to consider what you are trying to accomplish, which technology you choose and what your financial limitations. This can often make it a difficult decision for someone who isn’t well-informed about the available technologies. This article should at least inform the reader about some of these options.
click here for more articles.