Does your campus have an emergency response plan for various issues — like impending weather, facilities damage, cyber security breaches, campus security intrusions or health and wellness incidents? Do you have a mass notification system to notify some or all of your constituents depending on the issue? Most if not all schools have those plans and systems in place, but do not have a good way to implement the plan — and this is where ZipBridge comes in — an emergency communication system for K12 and higher education institutions.

One frequent issue that comes out of post-incident reports is the time it took to get the right people on a conference call to decide what was happening and the best next course of action. Phone chains, emails and text messages take time, do not receive the urgent attention necessary and require extra steps to actually join the call. This is the communication gap ZipBridge was developed to fill.

“We have used ZipBridge at College of the Holy Cross for several years. Having the ability to immediately communicate as a group in a crisis has been a tremendous advantage for our emergency response team. It’s simple to implement and, without the need for any additional equipment, just makes sense if you need to pull a team together quickly on a single phone call as a group. Just launch the call, everyone’s individual phones ring, they answer, and you’ve got the team on the call. Simple and fast.” —Chief Shawn de Jong, Director of Public Safety

With ZipBridge, any authorized individual can quickly and easily launch a conference call at the start of or during an incident. Once launched, all the members in the group RECEIVE an actual phone call and are bridged together as they answer. No dial-in numbers, PIN’s, custom apps or special equipment needed. Just a phone call to their mobile and work phones from a number they recognize — so they can make sure to answer — and communication with the full team begins instantly. And if they miss the call from the crisis communication system, they will receive an SMS and email to call back in from their mobile — and still no PIN needed.

For more information on how ZipBridge can add a simple instant team communication layer to your existing plans and mass notification systems, visit their website at ZipBridge.net.

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