Companies are increasingly interested in employee notification systems such as AMG Alerts to deal with unforeseen issues on a timely basis. Sometimes it is as simple as letting employees and partners know that a necessary computer system is down. Other times it may be genuine emergencies that require quick action.
And as we normally suggest, our customers in most cases do not dilute the value of an AMG Alerts notification by mixing the mundane with the vastly important. They use their more traditional communications channels for the former, even if they are slightly less effective at reaching people.
Often, when a company gets started with AMG Alerts, they give careful thought to the setup, sometimes putting in place a system that allows extreme granularity among the Subscriber (our word for potential recipient) population. This allows them to target groups with pinpoint precision. While this seems like it would be a great idea, it has its downsides, which can be significant:
1) Maintenance: Too much granularity – excessive “categorization” among the Subscriber base – creates an additional maintenance burden. It means that there is more likely that a person will move from one group to another and not be covered by laser-focused messaging until there is an update.
2) Confusion at Alert Launch: During the setup process, it’s clear what the categorization nomenclature means because it’s fresh in everyone’s mind. But then the system may go six months or more before an Admin needs to launch an urgent message. Confusion at that point causes delays or incorrect distribution.
You can set up AMG Alerts to send to Peoria location, Second Shift, Maintenance Department, Group A employees, and target only that group. But you could also send to all Peoria employees and specify who is affected within the message itself (!)
Do what’s right for you, but our motto regarding important messaging is “Its almost always better to communicate to too many people, than too few.” Keeping the system simple will almost certainly yield rewards.