County Crisis Communication

Alachua County Crisis Communication Project

Project Year: 2016

Situation

In 2016, GRU was using online robocalls to disseminate emergency information to its 93,000+ customers. Each robocall was segmented, set up, and reviewed manually, which created a significant time lag. This meant that customers often didn’t receive pertinent information quickly, a critical problem during Florida’s hurricane season. I was asked to lead the review and revision of internal and external emergency communication.

The Challenge

GRU was a municipal utility governed by the city council and board. This meant that the utility was mandated to follow county and state policy when it came to the introduction of large-scale projects, budgets, and partnerships. Navigating the emergency response project would require successfully navigating government policy.

Approach

In approaching this problem, I spent a significant amount of time interviewing stakeholders to understand:

  1. the different types of information the utility needed to communicate to the public
  2. how the public preferred to receive information, and
  3. how technology could be leveraged to reduce friction in that process.

I identified a list of needs for all of the stakeholders involved in the communication dynamic (the utility, customers, city council, law enforcement, etc.) From there, I identified SaaS providers of large-scale emergency response communication and engaged them to understand which may be best able to service those needs at a cost acceptable to the utility’s governing board.

I negotiated a steep discount with a SaaS provider and presented our proposal to utility leadership. Once the project was given board and council approval, I developed the implementation procedure and performance metrics.

Today, the county continues to use the crisis communication protocol set in place during this project.

Impact

  • Introduced first rapid emergency information dissemination SaaS platform in the state of Florida
  • Negotiated a 53% discount with the service provider
  • Decreased message delivery time from 5 hours to 15 minutes
  • Designed strategy and implementation for the new approach to emergency communication
  • Developed internal SOPs and training sessions for cross-functional teams
  • Created pre-programmed crisis communication templates tailored for various customer segments
  • Generated buy-in from City Manager to expand the project and cover county-wide emergency communication protocols
  • Finalized initial project implementation within 5 months of project inception

GRU
Gainesville’s Municipal Utility

Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) is a municipal utility in Florida providing electric, natural gas, water, wastewater, and telecommunications services to about 93,000 customers in the Gainesville area.

I worked as a marketing and communication specialist leading a variety of internal, external, and crisis communication projects.