The year is young, but 2017 already has a full slate of conferences for public security companies and employees all over the country.
Various organizations have posted their plans for conferences regarding everything from technological developments in the industry to honoring public safety telecommunications workers to massive expos with a long list of vendors.
Here are just a few of the conferences for PSAPs and public safety companies and professionals.
APCO (Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials) International-hosted Events
The non-profit, member driven APCO organization has five events listed for 2017:
Feb 28th-March 1st
North Hilton Raleigh
Raleigh, NC
This two-day conference will pack in a lot of information for attendees, summarizing new developments in public safety technology.
National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week 2017
April 9-15
Every year, NPSTW is held to honor those who work with telecommunications in public safety. PSAPs around the country are encouraged to take this time to honor 911 dispatchers, 911 call-takers, and other front-line workers who have made a difference in the lives of others in their communities.
2017 Public Safety Broadband Summit
May 16-17
Renaissance Hotel
Washington, DC
The summit is a forum for experts in technology, policy makers, service providers and other professionals, centered around the launch of the new FirstNet public broadband network.
Public Safety Communications Leadership In Policy Awards Dinner
May 17th
Renaissance Hotel
Washington, DC
The dinner takes place in the same location as the Broadband Summit, but it focuses on honoring those who advocate for the public-safety industry. It’s also a networking-heavy event that lets industry leaders connect.
APCO Annual Conference & Expo
August 13th-16th
Denver, Col.
Considered APCO’s most important event of the year, the Expo will feature vendors on the cutting edge in public-safety equipment and innovation, It’s also the most wide-ranging in terms of attendees. Everyone from public safety officials to telecommunications employees to com center managers will be there.
ACI (Airports Council International) event
The 2017 ACI-NA Public Safety & Security Committee Conference
March 27-30
Las Vegas, Nev.
This convention will allow members of the airport public safety industry to meet with officials from TSA and the FAA to discuss the changing face of airports in North America.
The ACI expects a wide range of attendees, from Airport Security Coordinators to law enforcement professionals to airport legal representatives.
Regional events:
The North Carolina National Public-Safety Communications Conference
Sept. 10-13
Harrah’s Cherokee Casino & Resort
Cherokee, NC
This conference is hosted jointly by the North Carolina branch of NENA (National Emergency Number Association) and their sister group, the NC chapter of the Association of Public-safety Communications Officials.
It will include education sessions on three of the four days, a vendor expo, a dinner and networking event, and a closing banquet.
The Texas Public Safety Conference
April 9th-12th
Galveston, Tex.
The Texas branch of APCO’s convention is unique among regional public safety conferences because they expand their reach to include border security officials.
It’s one of the largest regional gatherings of its kind in the country, and includes training in telecommunications, database technology, leadership & management, and educating the public.
NENA Nationwide Conferences
In addition to various events held by local chapters, NENA also holds several national events.
NENA Annual Conference & Expo
June 3rd-8th
San Antonio, Tex.
This conference features multi-day education sessions, several different keynote speakers, large-scale networking opportunities, and one of the biggest expo halls in the country with dozens of vendors.
9-1-1 Goes To Washington
Feb. 26th-March 1st
Marriott Crystal Gateway
Arlington, Va.
This conference is designed to exert influence on the policy makers in national government, drawing attention to funding and development of public safety programs.
It’s more of an advocacy conference than a sales or technology event, encouraging attendees to take in speeches by members of Congress, while learning about emerging issues in the public safety field. There will be an actual march on Washington to the halls of Congress folded into the event.
At KOVA, we’re committed to helping public safety officials do their jobs better with the help of cutting-edge technology. To read more about what KOVA can offer your PSAP, take a look at our public safety software solutions.
We live in a time when technology is one of the most used words in our language.
Tech has quickly worked its way into almost every part of our daily lives, as well as work and school environments. And it can be easy to hand off responsibility to new tech innovations—many times, it’s beneficial to all involved. Collecting and analyzing data can lead to important discoveries about industries, even turning generally accepted notions on their heads.
Whether it’s figuring out the way to advertise in order to reach consumers, or analyzing phone calls to identify common issues with customer service, the use of technology and data analysis in the workplace can be a welcome addition.
But that doesn’t mean we should lose the human element of decision making entirely. When we look to the past, it’s clear to see that new technology sometimes blinded people to risks or gave them too much confidence in the technology itself.
Decisions made with too much faith in technology sometimes have a way of backfiring when that faith turns out to be misplaced. The Titanic was a modern marvel. Unsinkable. Well, we all know how that turned out.
The tech that you use in your contact center isn’t the Titanic, granted.
But it is important to remember that all the useful data and innovative technology advances in the world don’t replace good decision making from people who are competent and engaged in their work. The data gives you the ability to make good decision and set the right course for the future, it doesn’t guarantee that you will.
And when it comes to customer service, the human element is still quite important for customer satisfaction. Even with the rise of self-service options for customers, the satisfaction of being able to connect with a real person is irreplaceable.
Think about the frustration that people feel when they call customer service and get a completely automated reception. “Press 1 for questions about…” It’s a commonly-used setup in commercials that are advertising the quality of their customer service.
“At So-and-So, you can talk to a real person.”
And we take this as a sign that the company is making an effort to provide better customer service, because you can talk to an agent who can listen to your problem, make decisions autonomously, and quickly react to different information.
At the end of the day, while technology is great at streamlining processes and providing data for major decisions, it still doesn’t have that human element that makes for a satisfying interaction. And it certainly can’t make management decisions for you.
But it’s not all dire warnings when it comes to innovative technology for your contact center. If you’d like to read more about how new, beneficial tech in the customer service industry can help you out, then try our article, “How The Right Technology Can Make You A Better Manager.”
Effectively managing a contact center takes a lot of organizational knowledge, people skills, and foresight. It takes more work than many people may realize to keep things running smoothly, and there are quite a few moving pieces that you have to be keeping an eye on at any given time.
Technology in the workplace, and especially in customer service, is quickly evolving to empower its users. If used properly, there are a number of different technologies available that can help you become a better manager, and keep things running smoothly.
Scheduling Software
Gone are the days of paper calendars filled with handwritten notes and covered in post-its.
Similarly, it doesn’t quite cut it to just email a spreadsheet with the weekly or monthly schedule. Using dedicated scheduling and management software to make, and keep track of, schedules doesn’t just give you peace of mind, it helps your employees by enabling them to instantly access their schedule, request changes, and stay posted on updates.
You have more control over scheduling, and can cut down on mix-ups and miscommunications that drive managers crazy.
Electronic Calendars
Scheduling software keeps you and your team on the same page when it comes to the monthly scheduling, but what about your own schedule?
This is where electronic calendar apps can bring some much-needed coherence to your schedule, and help you organize yourself better. Paper calendars only let you jot down a few brief notes before they’re full, but calendar apps allow you to leave detailed notes to yourself, and quickly zoom from an overview of the month or week to a specific day and hour.
A well-organized manager is a better manager, and you’ll quickly notice the difference when you make the switch to a more intuitive calendar system.
Project Management Software
Project management software is perfect for any manager looking for a way to communicate effectively with a number of team members over an easy-to-use platform.
Good communication, or its absence, can make or break any project or initiative that you’re working on in your contact center. As anyone with experience can tell you, communication is the key to any good relationship—and the relationship between management and employee is no exception.
Enterprise Feedback Management Software
In order to manage your contact center efficiently, you need to have a way to reliably track customer satisfaction and their overall impression of your customer service. Then you can quickly identify and react to problems, providing better customer service and increasing your customer’s satisfaction.
You’ll be able to unify disparate systems, and bring together a complete view of customer feedback through different channels. With that information on hand, you have what you need to provide better management and direction to your contact center.
If you’d like to learn more about adding technology to your contact center, and how you can convince upper management, then we’d suggest reading our post, “Achieving Upper Management Buy-In For New Technology.”
As technology evolves and consumer demographics shift, customer service trends have a tendency to either grow quickly, or fall by the wayside. But that’s not ideal for many businesses who are looking to stay up-to-date with those current customer service trends. At this point, knowing what’s coming is half the battle. So take a look at some of these customer service trends that we can expect to see in 2017.
Chatbots
Chatbots are going to continue to be a trend in 2017 as the technology behind them gets better, and businesses get better at using them to help customers.
It’s a plus for everyone when a machine can chat online with a customer and resolve their issue. But we also know that there are still plenty of limitations on what a chatbot can do and how far they can go before it becomes necessary for the customer to speak with a real person.
In a perfect scenario, the chatbot would recognize that it could no longer help, and would give the conversation over to a human representative in a smooth, seamless transfer. This is part of an overall push towards AI that also shouldn’t be ignored—both in terms of helping the customer, and assisting the representative providing customer service.
Omnichannel
Bringing to bear a comprehensive omnichannel strategy is an ideal proposition for customer service, but if you’ve researched it for your contact center, you know it’s not as easy as it sounds.
Allowing customers to use several different channels of communication for customer service can be difficult to implement.
Still, having quality customer service on all channels—and providing customers with the ability to switch seamlessly between those channels—is worth it in the long run. Customers want to have their questions answered quickly, no matter what channel they happen to be using. It’s a challenge, but it’s more important than ever in 2017.
Self-Service
This is partially driven by changing consumer demographics and attitudes, and self-service is going to keep trending in 2017.
That’s in part because of the attitude that Millennials—now the largest living generation in the U.S.—have towards customer service and problem solving. Most would rather attempt to figure out a problem using web resources on their own, before they make a phone call or send an email.
Providing the resources consumers need for self-service is a win-win, as it empowers them and increases satisfaction when they are able to figure something out on their own.
You can use that to your advantage, as well, by monitoring your FAQ section and any other self-service resources you provide. It will give you valuable insight on recurring problems and what information customers find most helpful.
It certainly seems like technology is pushing into the realm of traditional customer service and turning some aspects upside down. For more information on what the future may hold for contact centers, check out our post, “Are Social Media and Digital Tools Making Traditional Contact Centers Obsolete?”
As 2016 draws to a close, it’s time to look toward what’s next in contact center technology for 2017.
Workforce optimization, customer service tools, Voice of the Customer - these are all areas in which technology continues to change and improve.
We went through some of the leading surveys and studies on these topics to find the top predictionsfor 2017. You can get a quick picture of the trends with this infographic from the Contact Center Network Group.
More contact centers migrate to the cloud.
According to a 2016 survey of contact centers by 8x8 and the Contact Center Network Group, more than 75 percent of contact centers have recognized the value the cloud has for their industry.
25 percent of contact centers have fully deployed their cloud services already; 28 percent have partially migrated to the cloud; and 21 percent plan to migrate to the cloud within the next year.
This has implications for software solution providers, which will need to focus on their cloud offerings to ensure their security, ease-of-use, and ease-of-migration. Solutions like the Verint Media Recorder Workforce Management solution are available as cloud or on-premise solutions, and are a great way to start your enterprise’s migration to cloud services.
Organizations are overhauling customer service protocols to fit an omnichannel world.
Customer service is still king - it just looks a whole lot different than it did 15 or even 5 years ago.
Lots of organizations are taking a complete, 360-degree look at their customer service processes and protocols to make them fit the omnichannel world that we’re now living in.
That means ensuring that response times for customer service are quick and efficient, as well as that customers have multiple channels through which to contact you. And that doesn’t just mean email and phone anymore.
Customers want to be able to get in touch through channels from live chat to social media, and they want their questions acknowledged - and if possible, resolved - fast. In addition, the experience across all channels should be seamless, whether the mode of contact is text, chat, phone, or a web form.
Self-service options are also an important part of this new omnichannel customer service universe, and more contact centers will implement them over the next year. Self-service tools include speech-recognition IVR, web-based knowledge portals, robot-assisted channels, and virtual agents.
Workforce management and optimization software is still underutilized.
Despite the many workforce management tools available, more than half of contact centers - 58 percent, according to the 8x8 survey - are still reporting using spreadsheets to manage everything from scheduling to performance.
This is surprising, given how much easier these functions can be with a simple software solution. The Verint Media Recorder Workforce Optimization suite, for example, allows users to:
And much more. Getting these functions out of a manually updated spreadsheet, which is not only tedious to keep current but also highly prone to human error, and into a dedicated software system is going to become more prevalent this year as contact centers find themselves needing to produce more, and more accurate, data.
More contact centers are utilizing remote workers.
Remote workers have been a staple of the contact center workforce for several years, but their numbers have been steadily growing over the past year. This seems certain to continue, with 59 percent of businesses claiming to have work-at-home workers, according to that same 8x8 survey.
One reason for the continued growth in this area is that the technology to support these workers is getting better every year.
Take the cloud, for example. As more contact centers migrate their systems over to the cloud, there will be more and more opportunities for at-home workers. All they’ll have to do to “go to work” is log in to the system on their laptops and put on a company headset.
A major factor to consider when hiring remote workers is security. If your workers have access to sensitive customer information, like Social Security numbers or bank information, it’s vital that your phone and cloud services employ industry standard security measures that are totally up-to-date. This is something you must discuss with your software vendor when deciding which solution to purchase.
It appears as though many of the trends for 2017 will be continuations of 2016 trends - areas in which the technology is rapidly evolving, improving customer service and agent efficiency across the industry.
For more on specific trends for contact centers, read our post “4 Customer Engagement Trends for the Financial Services Industry.”
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could read minds? We’d always know what people were thinking and how they were feeling. We’d know how to respond to them in order to get the best possible outcome.
Unfortunately for those us living in reality and working in contact center customer service, we have to make do with more prosaic methods of learning how to deal with people: contact center customer service training. It’s important to invest in call agent training that emphasizes the significance of being empathetic with callers and their emotional responses, as it can aid in improving your call center’s metrics and reaching your business’ KPIs. Here are a few key concepts that your call center agents need to be aware of:
Agents need to empathize with the customer on the purpose of the call
It is necessary for agents to empathize with customers on the purpose of their call and any potential unfriendly attitudes.
Normally, customers contact call centers to either resolve an issue or to complete a task, such as troubleshooting technical issues or paying credit card bills, neither of which are enjoyable experiences. That’s the reason behind unpleasant call experiences. By having this understanding, agents can better aid customers by directly focusing on issue resolutions rather than attitude correction.
Don’t take the customer’s negative emotions personally
A common complaint that call agents bring up is the unpleasant or even uncooperative attitude that customers can have during calls.
During training, it’s essential to stress that agents don’t lose their composure because of the caller’s negative or confrontational tone - especially since it will only worsen the situation and create an even greater conflict. Clients are simply frustrated by the issue and not directly at the agent themselves.
Provide direction for both the customer and the call
Most unhappy callers just need a minute or two to get things off their chest before introducing their problem to the agent. However, it’s also critical that agents don’t allow them to go off topic or vent for too long, as they can aggravate themselves further and unnecessarily prolong the call duration.
Agents need to be trained in effectively managing difficult customer’s emotions and attention. One method is to interrupt them, but acknowledge their feelings and refocus them on the task at hand. For example, the agent can say: “I’m sorry to hear how frustrating this experience has been for you. However, I will work with you on resolving this. Please tell me what the issue is.”
Be positive and attentive throughout the entire call
As difficult as it may be, it’s essential that agents maintain a positive tone throughout the call. Not only will the caller pick up on this, but it can influence their feelings and create a more pleasant call experience.
Agents also need to be trained in attentive listening techniques, such as using verbal cues (“yes,” “ah,” “ok”) and avoiding interrupting the caller as they are explaining the issue. These techniques also benefit agents by building rapport with the caller. Making callers an active participant of the process shows them that they are being heard. In turn, they will generally become more cooperative.
Agent training is a vital part of running a successful contact center. For more on agent training, read our post “5 Ways to Make Your Contact Center Training More Efficient and Effective.”
Long gone are the days when the only way to reach a company’s customer service center was by picking up the phone and waiting - sometimes for as long as an hour, or even longer - for a service representative to help you with your problem.
Now that we have so many digital tools for instant communication, today’s customers expect to have their issues handled promptly and thoroughly - preferably without having to pick up the phone at all.
What does this mean for the traditional contact center? Are the new ways we communicate making them obsolete?
Contact centers that remain stuck in the old methods of customer service will not be able to compete.
In many ways, customer service standards of the 1990s and even early 2000s are no longer applicable.
The basic principles, of course, never change: Be courteous and polite. Be friendly. Handle a customer’s problems as efficiently as possible.
Timelines for responding to a customer’s problems, however, have changed drastically. In the past, when phone was the main means of communication, taking a day or two to get back to a customer whose issue needed additional attention was acceptable.
Today, customers expect to have their problems resolved very quickly, and acknowledged instantly. This is true across nearly every communication channel.
So if your contact center isn’t responding quickly to every comment and question you receive, you’re running the risk of obsolescence - not to mention very unhappy customers.
To stay relevant, contact centers must fully adapt to the omnichannel world that we now live in. That means giving your customers as many ways to contact you as possible and monitoring all those channels continuously.
This is no simple task, which is why many contact centers software to help them gather feedback. Two examples of this are Voice of the Customer Analytics and Enterprise Feedback Management software.
And if you really want to make them happy, offer a self-service portal and allow them to resolve their own problems.
Despite the growth of self-service, contact centers have a huge opportunity to make themselves more important than ever.
There’s no doubt about it: self-service is the way that customer service is going, with more companies adding self-service options for their customers every year. In 2014, 76 percent of customers reported using self-service options, according to Forrester Research.
However, this doesn’t mean that there’s no need for live contact center agents anymore. In fact, quite the contrary is true. Well-trained, competent, and efficient contact center agents are more important to a company’s customer service success than ever before.
That’s because self-service has a limit.
While customers can solve minor or simple issues on their own using knowledge bases or interactive tools, complex issues will still require the help of a human support specialist. This means that the issues that these specialists have to deal with when customers do call will be more complex.
Contact centers that want to succeed in today’s market will have to do two things.
How do contact centers begin implementing these changes?
A great first step is to assess your knowledge base. Does it have the knowledge that your agents require in order to achieve first-call resolution on a regular basis? Is that information easy to find and access?
If your answer to both these questions is “yes,” then you may want to consider opening up at least part of that knowledge base to your customers.
As for the customer listening aspect, Enterprise Feedback Management software can help you make sense of all the information coming at you from all your different channels. To learn more about how you can better serve your customers in today’s service environment, read our post “Omnichannel Customer Service Should Span Both the Physical and Virtual Worlds.”
Advertising has gone a bit overboard in the high tech marketing environment of 2016 – to say the least. With the hottest SEO (search engine optimization) consultants vying for consumer attention, clients are developing an insatiable appetite for top positioning in the SERPs race (search engine results pages).
It’s been all about getting visitors to your website lately – finding them, luring them in. However, without a unique service or product to offer, and enough infectious passion to spread around, you’re going to have trouble coming up with loyal buyers, and creating a unique customer experience. If you aren’t deeply devoted to fulfilling customer expectations, you may just end up being one-off.
Imagine a used-car dealer whose inventory is ridiculously overpriced and who specializes in selling them (at exorbitant financing rates) to buyers with credit problems. He may keep his doors open by ripping off one person at a time, but without referrals and repeat business he’s eventually going to fail; with online reviews available for disgruntled users, it may be sooner rather than later.
Now that we’re on the same page (keeping clients once they’ve found us) let’s explore why it makes sense to use an integrated system to ensure the optimal experience your customer is looking for!
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Considered to be a specialized category of business management software, ERP was originally used to pull together human resources, maintenance and accounting ‘under one roof.’ Today, these web-based solutions are generally a suite of applications with some very important added functions. They can now give you a real-time, leveraged picture of your business operations – by collecting, storing, managing and interpreting the data derived from product planning, manufacturing, market, inventory tracking, payment and delivery.
One powerful tool is Impact360, a system with enhanced analytical capabilities; it integrates customer data with your work processes – increasing the retention of your customers while boosting the productivity of your employees. The software you choose should provide a broad insight into your client’s needs and handle most aspects of enterprise workforce optimization. For a contact center, this might include training which is customized to each agent in accordance with your customer base.
Workforce Management (WFM)
Maintaining a productive workforce is vital to anticipating and fulfilling customer needs. There is much more pressure and responsibility put on the employees of the 21st century, and basic HR is not enough anymore. You can’t just expect to motivate your staff by merely posting compliance regulations on the wall of their break room and making payroll on time.
To stay competitive, you need to make certain your workers are properly trained, have a path to promotion in accordance with their performance, and are taking adequate leaves. The WFM module of a quality ERP system will handle many areas beyond the standard employer tasks; succession planning and talent management, learning and performance management, forecasting and budgeting of labor needs, tracking and analytics of absences and adherence to time and schedule activities. WFM might also include dispatching and mobile elements to streamline communications with field personnel.
Your people are your business, and when you stand behind them and provide them with tools for their success, you not only lift them up but increase the probability of return on your investment. The more staff you have to replace, the more money you lose from having to recruit and train new candidates. Heavy turnover is a red flag of instability to your customers, and it’s also disheartening for the remaining crew.
Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM)
Your EFM module should have the technology to set a point of reference (benchmark) for your company’s progress. Today’s customers interact via many different means; mobile, social media, chats, email, online reviews, etc. In fact, you may never see them in person – especially if you don’t have a brick and mortar location. When you’re not able to shake that buyer’s hand or have a real conversation with them, it’s crucial to be able to exhibit credibility for your brand.
Collecting all client feedback across the Internet and over telephone lines is a large piece of the big picture. But the ability to validate and monitor actions taken (in response to customer suggestions and comments) is imperative in order to comprehend which changes are building loyalty and satisfaction.
Customer Experience Surveys
Experience valuations allow you to compare those scores with your internal quality and scheduling scores. Not only will they give you an overview of performance, they can focus in on areas needing to be improved upon. When you can adequately assess your staff’s performance, it will lay the groundwork for a personalized coaching and training program which maintains consumer confidence.
The customer experience module should provide multimedia recording and archiving of calls, as well as evaluations. Search and retrieval functions give your staff access to available opportunities which enhance customer service, reduce liability and expedite resolutions. Its analytic functions should help you develop a strategy for boosting the longevity of your client relationships.
There are many options to choose from; want some help when looking for proper customer experience software? Take a look at the varieties of contact center solutions online. These solutions are made with the customer in mind.
Over the years, video has come to play an integral role in public safety operations. Public and private video surveillance has helped catch criminals and prosecute those who break the law on camera. And the demand for video is increasing, both from first responders and the people that they protect. Video is increasingly becoming an important tool for evidence collection and police accountability alike.
There are several different ways that video analytics can improve public safety.
If your public safety organization could benefit from upgrading its software and using analytics, then contact Kova today. Our public safety software solutions give government, public, and enterprise organizations the actionable security information they need to be effective in their emergency response, investigations, and analysis.
At KOVA, we’re strong believers in the power of technology to make people and cities safer. Over the years, we’ve worked with countless agencies and public safety answering points (PSAPs) to implement tools like KEANS Services, an emergency notification system, and Verint Media Recorder for Public Safety.
One type of technology that’s having a major impact on public safety is mobile apps. Here’s a list of just a few that are making differences for everyone from first responders to citizens.
See Send
This app by My Mobile Witness takes the old mantra “See Something, Say Something” into the digital age. Anyone who downloads the app can securely send pictures and report suspicious activity to state centers run by police and the Department of Homeland Security.
All photos and tips are geotagged, so that they’re routed to the closest security center. This allows police and other public safety personnel to not only receive more tips from the public, but also create specific public alert messages to go out in a geographic area.
SilentPartner
Developed by KOVA Corp., Silent Partner is a mobile recording app for police officers, public safety officials, and anyone else who needs to gather data in the field, away from the office.
SilentPartner turns your smartphone into a secure mobile recording device, allowing users to capture any and all data that their phone can capture, from photos to videos to sound. They they can instantly tag or label that data for easy retrieval later, and then immediately and securely transmit that data to their home office database.
Advanced features of the SilentPartner system include Speech Analytics, which allows software to “listen” to the content of all of your calls. Trends within those calls are then automatically reported, which can help uncover commonalities between cases thought to be unrelated.
This is especially useful for detective bureaus that exist across multiple precincts, because it allows investigators to easily find linked cases. Rough transcription of calls, keyword and phrase searches, and indexing of communications are also options available with SilentPartner.
Mobile Patrol
Mobile Patrol is a public communication app that allows public safety officials and law enforcement to connect directly with their communities. Public safety agencies can use Mobile Patrol to let citizens see lists of recent bookings into detention facilities, release alerts about their most wanted lists or area sex offenders, or offer general safety information.
On the citizen side, Mobile Patrol users can not only access all of this information, but they can also submit crime tips or report a sighting of a person on the most wanted list.
Like Twitter, which many public safety agencies are now using to communicate directly with the public, Mobile Patrol allows for the fast release of public safety information that may help keep citizens and their families safer.
The American Red Cross mobile apps
The American Red Cross has a number of mobile apps that can make a huge difference in public safety.
The First Aid app offers information on how to handle common first aid emergencies, which can be of great use to law enforcement and other public safety officials who may need information on how to help an injured person.
There are also disaster apps: Hurricane, Tornado, Earthquake, Wildfire, Flood, and Emergency. These apps give weather and disaster alert information, and also allow users to let their loved ones know they’re safe, even when the power is out.
LiveSafe
Used by many large corporations and educational institutions, LiveSafe is a mobile app that allows users to connect with security or public safety officials at their organization.
The platform includes features like SafeWalk, which lets friends and family “virtually walk each other home” by monitoring a contact’s progress from point to point on a real-time map. Another feature is Safety Map, which shows users places of safety - police stations, hospitals, etc. - in the area in which they work or go to school.
The app also allows users to submit tips to public safety or law enforcement about suspicious people or behavior.
Mobile apps are just one way that technology is helping us live more safely. To read more about tech and public safety, read our post “Smart, Safe Cities: GE’s Smart Streetlights to Include Gunshot Detection.”
