Going mobile: Innovations in communications

A company I consult for had its CEO interviewed over a controversy on television. The controversy broke out at around 4 pm, the business channel got in touch with the CEO at 7 pm and by 8.30pm the CEO was live on air for a public debate on the controversy. It was an important debate that the CEO was participating in and employees of the company would be proud of the public stance chosen by the CEO.

The question was: how do you tell 2,200 employees spread across the country, in six different cities, to switch on their television sets and watch a particular channel at 8.30 pm because their CEO was going to make a statement critical to industry? And, worse, how do you do this in the space of 90 minutes, especially when 80 per cent of the employees had left their workstations for home?

The company wasn't too worried about the communication. They have their employees subscribed to a company-wide SMS service. And they can reach employees, regardless of where they are "� in office, at the dinner table, on the golf course, at a wedding, attending a meeting, in a beauty parlour "� by SMS. At 8 pm, an SMS went out to every single one of the 2,200 employees, alerting them about the CEOs appearance on the business channel.

The company uses SMS to communicate a variety of time-bound and critical-to-phone messages. This is done in addition to the emails that go out, sometimes much later than the SMS.

So, as examples, the company uses SMS to remind employees about deadlines with regard to their Income Tax filing needs, updates them about enhancements to the employee referral program and so on.

And what exactly is a "critical-to-phone message"? These are messages that carry important phone numbers that can be immediately stored on your mobile phone's contact book. Microland, a Bangalore-based Remote IT Infrastructure Management Company, which is a pioneer in adopting company-wide SMS communications, recently sent its employees the phone numbers of a qualified counseling service that employees can use for free to discuss their emotional health.

This was done after posters for the service were put up in office and emails were sent out educating employees about the importance of counseling to manage stress, anger and frustration. Suddenly, employees had the service's phone number available to them in a convenient manner and many of them saved the number immediately to their contact book.

I can imagine companies using SMS in a variety of situations: to announce big wins in the business, to announce awards won by the company and employees, to announce delays in lunch arriving in the cafeteria or perhaps even to remind employees before leaving on weekends to switch off their computers before going home (imagine the saving in power).

Mumbai-based Jetking uses SMS in a unique way. The hardware training company has all its franchisees across the country subscribed to its SMS alerts. Jetking uses SMS as a way of informing franchisees about important communications sent by email that they should not miss "� talk about a reminder culture! This is, however, an important business tactic. Franchisees sometimes tend to ignore mail, believing they can catch up with it later. But the business impact of ignoring certain mails can be huge in a business like Jetking's.

GEAR International school in Bangalore has used SMS in a way so fascinating that it completely changes the impact of communications. Two hours before junior school children were to put up a performance for parents, it threatened to rain. The outdoor performance was in jeopardy. Should the school cancel the performance? And what if, ultimately, it did not rain? Were parents already thinking of canceling their plans to attend the performance because it looked like it might rain?

After a discussion with the children, the Principal of the school decided to go ahead with the performance. So out went an SMS to all parents who have been subscribed to the school's SMS alert service at the start of the academic year: "Come rain come shine, the performance is on. Make sure you cheer the children "� and don't forget to bring along your raincoats!"

The effect this message had on parents was to dispel all fear that the show may be cancelled. Parents didn't have to call in to find out if the school was going ahead with the performance (and face jammed school lines as 800 parents attempted to call for the same reason!). I think the Principal's approach was sharp. It showed that the school expected parents to support the children and excuses like, "I thought it would rain, so did not turn up" would not do.

We don't think of using SMS for enterprise-wide communication because the medium has acquired a dubious reputation. But it is the medium the next generation trusts. The faster we move to using and understanding it, the more effectively we will be able to leverage it.

Arun Katiyar is an independent corporate content and communications consultant. Microland is one of his clients.
He can be contacted at arun.katiyar@gmail.com 

SMS DND
SMS can become intrusive and an irritant. Employees may want to put up a Do Not Disturb (DND) to block your messages. Here's how to ensure they actually want your SMS alerts:

Create groups of employees that receive your SMS. The groups can be division-wise, designation-wise, geography-wise. Each group receives messages that are the most relevant to them.

Use an SMS vendor that lets your employees independently "unsubscribe" to the service. There are numerous such services available. You could try MyToday (see http://mobs.mytoday.com/) or Webaroo (http://www.webaroo.com/) for enterprise solutions. See which features work for you before you sign up.

Use a service that lets employees use a time-bound DND. For example, the employee can set a DND between 10 pm and 7 am, so that messages sent between these hours are delivered only at 7 am.