Department of Foreign Affairs: Global Staff Alerts

Challenge

The Department of Foreign Affairs sought a reliable and efficient way to communicate with staff located both within Ireland and at international consulates and embassies in the event of crises such as extreme weather or disease outbreaks. SMS was chosen as the primary communication channel due to its ability to deliver messages quickly and its availability even in areas without 3G coverage.

The department selected Púca’s Impower™ SMS platform to facilitate rapid and reliable communication with its staff during emergencies.

“Email and social media are great for communications that aren’t time-sensitive, but SMS continues to be the best and most ubiquitous messaging platform.”

Eileen Carroll, Púca CEO

Solution

In mid-2019, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade adopted Púca’s messaging platform, Impower™, to facilitate secure and timely communication with embassy staff via SMS. 

SMS is an effective communication method due to its high read rate and its “always on” nature, making it particularly useful during rapidly changing situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results

With Impower™, various user groups within the department are able to send SMS messages at a moment’s notice to keep embassy staff informed and updated.

“The Department has used Púca’s SMS platform to communicate with different groups of staff at short notice such as Covid updates, Crisis alerts, IT alerts and weather warnings. We find SMS is extremely effective for all types of urgent communication, and the Impower™console is very easy to use”

ICT Operations Manager, Department of Foreign Affairs