As the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to change our environment, it has become clear that transparency and frequent communication are critical for businesses trying to manage customer expectations. In achieving this, technology now becomes the focus as organisations attempt to navigate the crisis.

Using its Communications-as-a-Service platform, virsaic™, CoTé Software & Solutions (CoTé) in partnership with DXC Technology has developed an innovative offering that will allow businesses and organisations to effectively engage with their stakeholders as this unpredictable situation unfolds. This solution will make it easier to reach customers, members, patients or any other stakeholder with ongoing policy and service announcements via a range of digital channels.

CoTé founder and Managing Director, Carlos Van Durme emphasises the need for a comprehensive communications system. “In our experience, the most important factors in dealing with crisis communications are speed and transparency. One of the biggest hurdles we’re seeing organisations face is being able to define, develop, and approve critical messages, and get those communications out quickly.”

Through virsaic™, crisis communications can be created and approved rapidly via an inbuilt workflow, then delivered and tracked. Depending on the communication, recipient responses and feedback can be captured and analysed so that communications in the pipeline can be honed to maximise effectiveness.

“In particular, we’re working with organisations who have physical print and mail that they need to be digitised, and quickly.”

In working with these clients, CoTé knew that technology could provide the solution. So, to enable organisations to respond effectively at speed, they have developed a commoditised crisis communications capability that offers:

• Prebuilt templates and content for consistent and accurate crisis (COVID-19) communications
• No long-term commitment
• Transparent subscription pricing
• Easy expansion to any and all channels including email, SMS, online portals, live chat, voice, mobile messaging and social media
• Easy integration with critical systems e.g. core CRM/case management
• Analytics to continuously monitor interactions to stay across new developments and customer needs

Van Durme says, “our virsaic™ CaaS platform and this crisis communication offering is perfect for inclusive, rapid, and fluid communications at low cost and with a straightforward, simple setup. Key to the offering is having a secure agile solution that offers both outbound and inbound communications which can be up and running in 48 hours.

Looking beyond the crisis, integrating effective communications capabilities that allow organisations to reach stakeholders with the right information at the right time, will be crucial as we move into a new, uncharted world.