During this time of shelter in place and social distancing, the need for communication is greater than ever before. While we’re all stuck in our houses, many feel isolated from our communities, friends and families.
In times such as these, we’re reliant on our government officials for updates to assist with this isolation and inform us how we can safely engage with our communities. Syniverse and Everbridge have teamed up to do just that and help deliver messages like these to the public at large.
Through this partnership, we recognized that people are much more apt to open text messages than emails. In fact, the market has shown the average open rate for text messages versus push notifications and email is substantially different, with a 98% average open rate for text messages but only 6-12% for push notification and 20% for emails.
And with the ever-evolving situation of the coronavirus and shelter in place orders, people need to get the latest information quickly.
The demand for these communications was astounding. Government leaders across the United States shared via press conferences and social media the short codes and keywords constituents should text to receive communications from their local governments.
In the first day after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city’s short code (Text COVID to 692692), 116,000 people signed up for the service, with a total of more than 950,000 registrations in the following weeks. Those New Yorkers joined millions more who signed up for pandemic alerts from dozens of cities across the country, including Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Tampa, New Orleans, Kansas City, and Atlanta, as well as entire states like Florida, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, even the U.S. Virgin Islands.
What’s more is that there have been over 400,000,000 pandemic-related messages sent from these cities to constituents. Despite this massive uptick in traffic, the Syniverse and Everbridge teams have managed the situation seamlessly.
As there are changes being made nearly daily around the world regarding how we all operate in this new world of remote working and social distancing, keeping people informed is paramount. Syniverse and Everbridge are determined to work together with government officials to keep people safe and informed through this crisis.
Stay safe and stay healthy.
How have these text messages from your city impacted how you obtain information? Leave me a comment, and I’d be interested to discuss this further.
Jonathan Lopez serves as a senior global enterprise account executive for top computer software and telecommunications enterprises and service providers. Prior to Syniverse, Jonathan served as an account executive for SaaS business. In his current role with Syniverse, Jonathan works with enterprises and service providers to deliver mobility solutions. Jonathan holds a Bachelor of Science in psychology from the University of Buffalo.
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