Emergency Planning : Preparing for the Worst

When it comes to property safety and emergency preparedness, even your back up plans need back up plans. Being in emergency response, Kings III fully embodies this. See how we help ensure there’s ALWAYS someone on the other line to answer emergency calls.

Imagine you are on your way to a meeting. You had just enough time to grab a cup of coffee and now you will be right on time. The meeting is with some higher-ups in the company, so you are heading near the top floor of the high-rise. You are in the elevator cab, carefully pinning your coffee to your side while thumbing through some last-minute notes. You are prepared. You have got this. That is when the elevator stalls, stranding you between floors.

This might not cost you your job, but it could cost you that promotion. Surely everyone will understand though, it is not your fault. Just give them a call and… ah, no cell service inside the cab. Thankfully, there is a push button with a phone symbol next to it.

No matter the type of building you manage, your tenants have schedules and obligations both in and outside of the property that could be hindered by an elevator entrapment like the one just mentioned.

If that emergency phone system is provided by Kings III, they will have nothing to worry about. Our operators will get the ball rolling on getting them out and will gladly make a call on the tenants’ behalf. We have an additional care factor or focus on customer service than most responders and we will even conference callers in with bosses, colleagues or family members at their request.

Just about everyone has a cell phone these days, but we all know signal can be spotty. Maybe your tenant played a little too much Candy Crush earlier that day and their battery has been drained. When times of trouble strike, whether it be on an elevator, at the pool, in a stairwell or while heading to your car in a parking lot or garage, it is important to have another means of reaching out for help. A backup. A redundancy.

You can never be too prepared

Redundancies play an important role, particularly regarding safety. When the deadbolt on your door or the lock on your car is not enough to deter a criminal, your security system or car alarm are there to kick in next. When your holiday roast is getting a bit more roasted than you intended and you cannot smell the smoke from the other room, your smoke detector is your greatest ally. When a fire breaks out at your place of work and you notice it while walking through the hall, pull the alarm, break the glass and pull out that extinguisher.

It is crucial to know that when the first choice, the obvious go-to solution fails for whatever reason that you can still be safe. If your tenants are in any dangerous situation, whether due to an accident in the parking lot, a slip or fall on the stairs or a belligerent individual at the pool, that is when they want to know that if the cell phone fails, there is a Kings III emergency phone system in place so they can call for help.

We have to prepare for emergencies too

There is an aspect to all this that not many consider. You might think about all the vulnerable areas where extra measures are required but… what happens when the disaster strikes at the place where we are supposed to call for help?

It is a scary thought but the reality is the very locations we would hope to reach in times of trouble are also vulnerable to things like fires, crime, natural disasters, power outages and technical issues with equipment, like phone lines and computer systems. That is why at Kings III we practice what we promote and employ backup measures.

In 2017 alone, Kings III handled 1,215,905 elevator, pool and help phone calls. Each one of those was a potential emergency. Many of them were actual emergencies. We offer a crucial and life-saving service, one that is too important to not be there when you need it. This is about more than customer satisfaction. It is about life safety.

The measures Kings III takes to be ready when you need us

From a security standpoint, our building is monitored, alarmed and secured with limited access. Our dispatch center and equipment rooms have an additional layer of secured access beyond that. No one gets in without authorization. This ensures that no sensitive equipment or information will be tampered with.

Regarding fire safety, our dispatch center is up to code and equipped with a fire alarm, sprinkler system and fire extinguishers in key locations.
Power outages are a very real and common issue in our world. They can be caused by anything from equipment damage or malfunction, inclement weather, and interference from wildlife according to Westar Energy (learn more about handling power outages on your property here). That is why we have two generators in place each of which is capable of powering all our most vital systems and that is tested at regular intervals. This ensures there is no loss of up-time at our main dispatch center.

After power, the redundancies continue into our server and network infrastructure where faults and failures can be resolved without a loss of service. Redundant servers, network switches, data circuits, and phone lines allow for immediate or rapid recovery in the event of interruptions.

That might sound like a lot, and it is, but we do not stop there.

What if there is an issue that denies us the use of our building? Despite all the preparations we have made and the redundancies we’ve implemented and tested, there are still circumstances that could render our building unusable. That is why we have an entire backup call center.

Our backup call center is an offsite location fully equipped with all the phone and computer systems required of our service. The location is a short drive away from our main facility but on a separate power grid and phone line system, helping to ensure that when one location goes down, the other will remain active. To put it plainly, our redundancies have redundancies and then some, all to help ensure that we are there to take the call when someone needs us.

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Kings III will take the call

Kings III has been providing emergency phone systems for nearly three decades. We take pride in the service we offer and the innovations we have made along the way. To learn more about our safety solutions for your property, contact us here or give us a call at 800-393-5858 today. You can rest assured, we will be there to take the call.