What is our primary use case?
We use the solution to notify the public about emergencies occurring within our region and other urgent notices, such as disruptions to municipal services.
Everbridge hosts the platform in the cloud, and we operate it via our browser. We're deployed across a regional district, including rural electoral areas and member municipalities. So, we have both urban and rural end users, around 3400 in total. Around 30 staff within our organization have access to the solution, mainly from the communications department and emergency program, and they are responsible for sending out and monitoring notifications.
How has it helped my organization?
Everbridge allows us to communicate better with the public and ensures the distribution of timely notifications. The most significant benefit of using the solution is that our subscribers are aware of what is going on and can react appropriately, whether to an emergency or a service disruption. An important example is whenever we issue an evacuation order, we can get the notification right to people's phones within minutes, rather than through more traditional means such as radio and websites.
Regarding contributing to our organization's mission, Everbridge is very useful to our strategic priority of enhancing emergency planning, as it's a tool that allows us to share information with the public rapidly. Communication is one of the first things to fail during an emergency, and Everbridge enables us to manage the communication gap.
The solution improved our mass notification capabilities, especially with the dynamic location feature; that's an essential one for us and allows us to send messages to relevant people. By avoiding bombarding people with messages that aren't relevant to them, we ensure they remain subscribed and maintain the effectiveness of the mass notification program. Selecting notification targets based on map location is very helpful for us.
Everbridge Mass Notification positively affected our productivity; it's quick and easy because it simultaneously does text message, email, voice-to-text, etc. We enter the message into one platform, and it can be broadcast in multiple ways very quickly.
The product saves us time; we don't have to manage and maintain multiple distribution streams, such as phone and email lists. Our users can self-register through the web portal using our link, which is much more efficient than us having to gather that information. We save a lot of time by not having to do the associated manual data entry. Estimating how much time Everbridge saves us isn't easy, but it's around 50 to 60 hours a year.
What is most valuable?
One of the most valuable features is that we can select specific users to whom we want to message by area. We can draw on the map within the interface and send a message to all our subscribers within that area, ensuring relevant and targeted alerting. This prevents us from disturbing all of our subscribers with messages that aren't relevant to them.
What needs improvement?
We have some issues regarding the template layout; we have about 80 templates and must scroll through a long list to find the one we want. It would be good to see subcategories or the ability to filter through the templates somehow.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using Everbridge Mass Notification for a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We've never experienced any downtime, so the solution is very reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Everbridge is straightforward to scale up or down; it's very scalable from a small to a large municipality or organization. The only issue is when we have more and more templates, as it can become hard to manage, so we want to be able to filter those.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is good; everyone has been very happy with their responses and materials. There is also an excellent platform called Everbridge University, which offers many learning resources.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I used a different solution at a previous employer, and it was much less user-friendly in terms of the interface and didn't have social media integration. The last tool was text, email, and text-to-voice calls, but no social media or website posting, and they didn't have an app either. Our users can get the Everbridge app on their phones, and if they travel into an area with a notice, they receive it right away, a capability the previous solution did not offer.
How was the initial setup?
I wasn't involved in the initial setup, but the solution requires next to no maintenance. Occasionally, users call us and ask for their information to be removed from the platform if they don't know how to do that themselves, and that's it.
What was our ROI?
We have seen an ROI as we use Everbridge regularly. The number of people we can contact versus without a solution like this is where the value lies for us.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Considering what the product offers, the price is fairly reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the solution nine out of ten.
Before using Everbridge, our main challenge was getting the necessary information out on time. The traditional means of doing so are far less efficient than having multiple forms of communication sent out from one platform, including email, text, phone calls, and social media integration. Everbridge is much more efficient because it allows us to get in touch with our subscribers rapidly.
My advice to those evaluating the solution is that seeing a real-world application of it is advantageous. It would be good to look into case studies of how organizations are currently using Everbridge, how they've used it in actual emergencies, what their experiences were, and how quickly they could get information into the system and out to users.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.