Do you always feel like you're the effect of what happens at your property?
Do you always seem reactive rather than proactive?
Do you wait for high-priority incidents to occur knowing that they're going to knock you and your team completely off course?
It's got to be draining.
You probably feel like a kite dancing in a hurricane.
It's a symptom of your incidents managing you.
Does this sound familiar?
A call comes in that there's been a fight, and it quickly escalated.
Now, a few of your customers are injured.
It looks like a critical situation developing on your watch. Are you prepared?
Was the escalation of this fight a result of you not having proactive operations in place?
We know this example is fictional. But could this happen at your property?
Are you letting your incidents manage you?
We say 'letting' because you can take full control of your operation.
You can be proactive.
It's a choice.
Yours.
It's a matter of choice, followed by the effort of your team to change the outcome of every incident that occurs on your property.
We're going to help you improve your operation, so you no longer feel like that kite.
Today, you're going to put the right solutions in place to manage your incidents – not the other way around.
AN INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IS YOUR CORE MANAGEMENT SOLUTION
Begin with the incident management system.
It's your core system.
It's the big piece leading to your peace of mind.
An incident management system utilizes a real-time dispatch queue.
It's magnificent because any number of users, at any number of locations, can simultaneously create, track and enter details of incidents occurring on your property.
All the information will update for each user in real-time.
Imagine sitting in your office, relaxing, and watching the capabilities of this solution.
As incidents are being created and updated, this solution can automatically notify individuals or groups about the incidents that are relevant to them.
You can include specific details, so nothing ever gets missed.
Do you want to make sure nothing gets overlooked?
Then, take your management one step further.
Schedule an alert to go out to one or more members of your team.
- Specific incidents reported
- Trending incidents
- Location-specific incidents
Detailed and accurate digital records are stored for liability defense.
Your captured records can be analyzed to reduce errors and maximize performance.
- Incident Pictures
- Incident/Witness Videos
- Witness Audio/Written Statements
- Vital Documentation
All of this can be attached as part of an incident record.
Everything can be accessed today, tomorrow, next month, next year, and even a decade from now.
Do you see the incident management benefits of these solutions?
They're endless.
By being able to generate detailed reports as to what, where, and when incidents are occurring, you are building the data needed to use for predictive analytics, and now you can be close to planning for what will happen in the future.
Your staff will be proactive, which means prepared and professional.
Keep reading because you must understand the essential benefits of using an incident management system.
These are critical to managing your incidents and not letting them control you.
Incident Types Optimize Incident Handling
Users can set up protocols to display by incident type in the system.
Why is this important?
Your team will know what to do when those particular incident types occur.
They'll no longer have to resort to your emergency management plan.
Many of the superior solutions also use color-coding systems.
Each incident has a different color and is timestamped for its singular purpose.
- Created = Red
- Dispatched = Yellow
- On Scene = Green
- Closed = Gray
It allows your team to see when incidents are sitting in a particular status for a lengthy period.
It's a proactive indicator that they should contact the person or department associated with the incident if it's been sitting too long.
Visual Cues Prevent Incidents From Slipping Through the Cracks
There's an additional visual aid available with these systems.
High-priority departments that are 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 flashing.
Critical issues are no longer overlooked, and your team is efficiently responding.
Efficient Resource Allocation Leads to Improved Response Time
Would you agree, effective resource allocation is a challenge when it comes to managing and responding to incidents?
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 the quickest to respond to an incident.
You'll have full awareness.
You're in control – not the other way around!
USE INCIDENT MANAGEMENT MOBILE APPS TO MANAGE ANYWHERE
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 upping your management capabilities?
These incident management solutions close a critical communication deficiency for properties like yours.
Much of your team is not armed with radios or allowed to carry their mobile phones.
It prevents effective communication.
At this point, they have no way to reach a supervisor or response team.
Time is of the essence. Your staff needs to spot incidents quickly and report them even quicker.
Speed and accuracy of communication are the keys to efficiently handling these situations.
It prevents them from escalating. It maintains everyone's peace of mind.
Mobile applications accomplish this.
Pictures and videos can be sent from many of these solutions.
Incident management mobile apps promote two-way communication.
Once an issue is reported, staff reporting an incident can then be messaged for more information as needed.
How's that for efficiency?
Communication is not limited to and from a single device. All devices in your arsenal can be messaged and with the same ability to send pictures and videos.
Here's what we mean:
- Your staff in the operations center is sent a picture of an unruly customer.
- They immediately send that photo to every device near that location.
- The unruly customer is confronted and then removed for questioning.
- You uncover that they're heavily intoxicated, and it's best to eject them from the property.
- You take down proper documentation to ensure your property is protected from future liability.
What if you need to do some on-scene reporting while you're at it? Not only do you need to manage your incidents, but you also need to keep them honest.
How do you do this?
First-class solution providers offer their app that works on your tablets so you can ensure you can capture detailed on-scene reporting.
These replace entirely notepads, which means no more pen and paper for good.
Many of these applications let you:
- Capture notes in digital format using voice dictation.
- Take pictures & capture video.
- Capture detailed witness statements along with their signatures for authentication.
You can go as far as timestamping response times from the device.
What's the result of this?
Your ability to accurately track incident response times. You're not only managing your incidents. You're capturing the right data to improve your capacity to handle them in the future.
Your mobile staff will no longer have to radio or call dispatchers to enter incident response times for them.
REAL-TIME REPORTING RESULTS IN REAL-TIME IMPROVEMENT
Let's not forget about the valuable data these solutions offer.
One-click reports provide comprehensive stats and insight for optimizing your management efforts. Reports help ensure your operation never falls behind.
Because let's be clear, you don't want to have your incidents manage you ever again.
Proactively analyze incident trends and response times to increase overall performance.
Once you start adequately managing your incidents, real-time reporting will help you achieve all of your other goals in the future.
How's that for peace of mind?
OVER TO YOU
If you're determined to manage your incidents and not let them manage you. Then, you're implementing and using the incident management solutions we've shared.
When you take full control of your property operations with a proactive mindset, the results are always in your favor. You enhance the customer experience, reduce your property's liability risk, and best of all, you achieve peace of mind.
So, will you be using these solutions to manage your incidents, and not the other way?
Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness and freshness.
