Manage Emergency Situations with Smart Communication

written by Wendy Züffle & Laura Toffali | January 15^th, 2025

Emergencies and crises may affect everybody. In order to react quickly and appropriately, smart communication is of crucial importance. With automated solutions and specialized software, communication becomes an advantage. Decisions can be accelerated, and dire consequences averted. How is safety at my workplace guaranteed? Who can support me in dealing with an escalating call? What advantages does the innovaphone PBX have as an emergency alert system? In this blog post, let us take a closer look at the different scenarios - from escalating a call to threatening calls and fire alarms. Continue to read for some hands-on examples on how to use our solution for emergency alerting.

The Ideal Solution for Every Situation

Call Centers -> Get Assistance!

Most businesses have departments that operate quite similar to call centers. These may be for providing support, service hotlines, marketing campaigns, switchboards, front offices or inside sales. When a call turns difficult, agents may be faced with challenges to remain calm and to respond appropriately. Imagine, you could support your agents in real-time without the customer noticing.

How can innovaphone Solutions Help?

With the help of a function key, a colleague, team leader or supervisor can join in unnoticed (silent monitoring). This support protects the agents and improves performance as well as customer satisfaction.

Switchboards and Critical Infrastructures -> Record Your Calls!

Certain businesses, institutions and authorities legally require the recording of phone calls. Sometimes, even lives may depend on it. Critical infrastructures are for example the emergency dispatch of police or fire departments as well as banks and service providers where phone calls are contractually binding.

How can innovaphone Solutions Help?

Record emergency calls or contractually binding phone calls conveniently via Voicemail, or via your innovaphone desk phone or softphone. innovaphone Recording is a solution to flexibly record inbound and outbound calls. It is MiFID compliant and provides different recording options for the users. Depending on the scenario, calls can either be recorded in full length, or users can manually record only select parts of a call. The Recordings App provides a well-structured listing of the recordings, including various filter options.

Places with Public Traffic -> Press the Emergency Call Button or Pick up the Receiver!

There may be various emergency situations that need to be communicated to security personnel promptly, discreetly and without causing panic. Examples include public authorities, schools, ships, airports and other public or private facilities with high public traffic.

How can innovaphone Solutions Help?

• Emergency function key on the phone or in an app on the computer
   
• Emergency button under the desk
   
• Hotline function: Lift the receiver of an emergency phone to call the predefined emergency number automatically - without dialling a number
   
• Warmline function: If the handset is lifted and no number is dialled within a set time, the predefined emergency number is dialled

The predefined emergency number can be an external number, the number of another user, a group, a waiting queue or an emergency conference unit. Combined alarm functions can also be triggered via various channels.

In certain sensitive areas, “silent” hardware phones can be used as a listening option for emergency personnel. This allows you to monitor the situation remotely, and to react accordingly.

Fire Alarm -> Evacuate the Building!

Everyone knows this situation: Fire alarm drills at the workplace or at the office building. When an actual emergency occurs and a fire breaks out, people inside the building must evacuate quickly and safely, to assemble at a designated meeting point.

Threats -> Keep Calm, Help is on the Way!

Employees with direct customer contact are increasingly being insulted, harassed or even physically attacked. This might happen at banks, public authorities or other facilities open to the public. In such situations, there is no time to lose. Those affected must be able to call for help quickly and inconspicuously, using the so-called silent alarm, so everybody can be brought to safety.

How can innovaphone Solutions Help?

With the help of an application, a pop-up window can appear on the monitor, for example with the above-mentioned messages. In addition, precise instructions can be stored, even for individual sections of the building or floors: How should I behave as an employee? What are the next steps? If myApps is installed on the smartphone, you are always up to date while you are on the go. This allows you to follow the instructions accordingly.

Another option are the innovaphone IP phones. These can play an "announcement", even while you are talking on the phone.

Disaster and Emergency Management -> Follow the Information!

Earthquakes, floods or pandemics require a fast and effective response. Prompt and precise communication is crucial in order to coordinate relief measures, inform the population, avoid panic and protect critical infrastructures. At the same time, important municipal services must be maintained.

How can innovaphone Solutions Help?

• Block inbound / outbound calls not set as important and emergency numbers
   
• Set up a preferred phone line to the affected location
   
• Record alerts and information for citizens who call the organization in an emergency - activated directly via the telephone
   
• For PBX use: innovaphone Emergency Communications Kit

Advantages of the innovaphone PBX as an Emergency Notification System

• Smart communication:
  The innovaphone PBX offers a variety of communication tools such as (video) calling, chat messaging, apps and video conferencing for virtual meetings. These tools allow for communication between employees, visitors and emergency services during critical situations.
   
• Create groups:
  The system makes it possible to select phones for different groups such as floors, building sections or departments. This allows a targeted and efficient evacuation or response to an emergency situation to be activated.
   
• Alarm notifications:
  The innovaphone PBX supports customized alarm messages. Companies can create specific messages for a wide variety of emergencies, such as fire, medical emergencies or physical attacks.
  
  
• Automation:
  The system can be programmed to automatically trigger an alarm when emergencies are detected, e.g. through the use of smoke sensors or motion sensors.
   
• Multi-language support:
  International companies benefit from our telephone system with multilingual support for alarm messages so that everyone is properly informed.

Tools to Ensure Safety

An emergency notification system based on the innovaphone PBX is a tool for companies, public institutions and educational establishments to ensure the safety of employees, visitors and students. We already offer some on-board tools, but we also work with many technology partners to meet the individual requirements of every customer. innovaphone myApps provides a variety of well-established telephony tools and modern UCC functionalities via one single interface: video telephony, application sharing, voicemail, chat and much more. It doesn’t matter where and from which device you work.

"Today, we are reluctant to deal with situations where we don’t seem to have everything under control. The world is different to what we are used to. However, if you actively deal with emergency scenarios in advance and plan technological aids to help you cope without stress, there is a high probability that they will never occur. innovaphone helps you to plan simple solutions for emergencies." 
Lars Dietrichkeit, Head of Business Management - innovaphone

Conclusion

There are many possibilities to set up the innovaphone PBX as an emergency notification system. If you are already innovaphone customer, you can use the existing options and capabilities of your innovaphone system without great effort and expensive investments. The integration of the IP phone system into an existing crisis management system guarantees a fast and coordinated response to emergencies.