Most notifications to employees are broadcast in nature, meaning that there is no particular need for the employee to “respond” per se. You just need to get information into their hands. At least 98% of messages sent through our AMG Alerts application are of the “broadcast” variety. No response back to the administrator is required.
That said, most customers do care about the effectiveness of their broadcast. Did the system work? Do I have some bad phone numbers or emails in my database? Where are the problems that might need to be corrected for next time?
Many companies at least do an occasional “test” wherein they send something through the system that says “Let me know if you received this.” This method is problematic in two significant ways. First a proper employee notification system will use multiple modes, either all at once or to individual employees based on their preferences. So how should a reply be initiated for the message that I receive? This information is virtually always left out of the message, so people reply to the email, or attempt to SMS back, or listen to a message on voicemail and then say “now what?” The administrator will get some acknowledgements, somehow, but probably miss others.
Second, even if the above were not an issue at all, not everyone will comply. What does it mean when you get, say, 73% confirmation? Not much. All it means is that at least that percentage received the message, but the actual number is likely much higher. What do you do with that information?
We believe in “passive” reporting, wherein you can look at a broadcast after the fact and see which numbers are bad for SMS and voice, which emails were bounced back, who may have had a spurious SMS issue, or which voice calls went to voicemail vs. being answered live. With this type of reporting, employees don’t have to do anything, and it can be a part of every broadcast, so you know if new problems creep in as you add new recipients.
We always suggest that people choose a system that has both specific reply capability as well as a “passive” reporting system where technology does the work of looking into possible communications issues.