It’s not business as usual these days. It’s not even close. The global coronavirus pandemic has changed business and personal lives in a way most people have never seen. Normal activities have been shut down and most businesses are operating in remote structures.
Fortunately, the tech community is enabling the massive work from home surge intended to weaken the spread of COVID-19, though confirmed cases continue to rise, as the U.S. has taken over with the most cases, closing in on 100,000. The use of video conferencing and other teleworking tools has surged over the past several months as workers adjust to their new environments and look to remain productive. Use of these tools is seeping into personal lives as well, as people are leveraging collaboration tools to engage with friends and families in lieu of traditional in-person events in an effort to cope with an otherwise stagnant social life.
The continued spread points to a major need to impactful communications from government agencies and health organizations, whose resources are critical to managing this crisis and disseminating accurate information to populations. Recognizing this, some companies are providing their services to help organizations more effectively engage population groups and deliver critical information quickly and through impactful channels.
Vibes, for instance, is giving its SMS notification solution to essential businesses to help them keep critical workers informed. This is important to keep critical employee infrastructures healthy and functioning in order to continue to fight the virus.
Facebook’s Messenger has launched two initiatives to support government health organizations in their efforts to manage the pandemic through the Messenger service and share critical information. The program connects government health organizations and UN health agencies with developers to leverage the Messenger platform to speed up communication to citizens.
Falcon.io, which develops SaaS solutions for social media engagement and analytics, is also participating in the Messenger project and will provide its Essentials Base+ solution to help these organizations:
- Publish content with speed,
- Automate responses to commonly asked questions, and
- Measure the engagement and reach of campaigns and activities across social media.
With so many people relying on social media to engage with friends and family – Messenger had 1.3 billion users globally, a figure expected to nearly double by 2021 – these platforms offer a great opportunity to deliver critical information and updates on a massive scale, and through channels that people are already using. The Essentials Base+ solution also integrates with other social platforms, like WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
“It is important to us that business leaders and technology providers join forces to combat this crisis as a united force,” said Ulrik Bo Larsen, Founder and CEO of Falcon.io. “I'm humbled that our solutions can be of value, and we're happy to help technology leaders like Messenger enable organizations globally to do their part.”
Falcon is one of more than 30 partners participating in the Messenger coronavirus initiative. The program is available to UN health agencies and verified government health organizations, such as public international organizations, central, regional/municipal and local government entities and central government administrations.
For these organizations, the ability to combat the spread of misinformation is critical to effective response, and having access to communities through the same channels will help stem the flood of inaccurate data.
The latest trends in customer engagement and experience, including automation, AI, and messaging/communication tools, and how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can benefit organizations and their communities of customers and users, is the crux of Future of Work Expo 2021. Taking place at the brand new Miami Beach Convention Center, June 22-25, 2021 as part of the #TechSuperShow. Future of Work will again sit beside its collocated events – ITEXPO, SD-WAN Expo, MSP Expo, IoT Evolution, The Blockchain Event, and more – to deliver a compete learning and networking opportunity for business leaders who need to know what new technologies will drive their companies into the future.
Edited by
Erik Linask
