No matter how many preventative measures you take and how many backups you have in place, something will eventually go wrong and give out.
Maybe your power goes out, maybe someone hacks your system, or maybe you encounter a number of other possible issues. Ultimately, a lot of things can go wrong, especially as technology improves and becomes even more crucial in our lives, which is exactly why you need to have a disaster recovery plan.
Preparing for the unexpected in IT is difficult, but having a strong team with an action plan is the best way to do this. However, what should your team tackle first? Read on to find out.
Figure Out How Severe it is
The first thing you need to do is figure out how severe your issue is. You’ll need to identify exactly what went wrong to know how many people may have been affected, what the repairs might look like, and how long you’ll be down for. The procedure for this should be outlined somewhere in your disaster recovery plan.
Unfortunately, the issue could be out of your hands. So if you rely on third-party applications or services for your day-to-day operations and this service goes down, you’ll have to wait for them to bring it back online.
A similar issue arises if you lose internet connectivity or power. In this circumstance, you’ll need to keep in contact with this service to inform them of the problem and get a timeline on when it may be remedied. Just remember that multiple people are doing the same thing, especially if a large event such as a power outage occurs.
Remaining calm and patient is the best thing to do while the problem is diagnosed, understood, and resolved, even if the issue is local and needs to be remedied by your IT team.
Communicate the Issue to Your Customers
Once the scope and severity of the issue are understood you’ll need to inform your customers of the issue. There are many reasons to do this, from letting customers know that you are aware of the issue and that it is being resolved to providing clarity as to what’s happening and why.
While you can simply tell everyone that something is wrong and you’re fixing it, you may want to provide some data. This could include giving an estimate as to how many people may be affected, how long it will take for there to be a fix, and what it means for your service.
For example, a simple issue may only be a minor inconvenience that is easy to fix while a large issue could take time to repair and could take your entire service down. Being clear about this to customers will help keep them calm and could increase their confidence and trust in your brand.
Suggest Alternative Options
Some issues will have workarounds that customers can utilize or that you can create to keep your business going until the issue is resolved. Informing customers of these workarounds and how to use them will allow you to stay functioning to some extent and let them know that you’re working on a solution to help.
Workarounds also give you a bit more time to perform diagnostics and repairs and could even provide insight as to what may have gone awry. If a workaround isn’t available, make that clear as well; if it is available, attempting to run a backup system could also be an option.
While this is an ideal scenario, it isn’t always an option—if backups rely on other third-party services that are also down or workarounds stop working, you may be out of order for a bit.
Remedy the Issue as Quickly as Possible
This is probably the most obvious part of the entire immediate reaction protocol, but there are some parts you may not have considered. One important step you’ll need to take is to ensure that the issue is completely resolved and then see if it could happen again.
If so, then you may need to switch services, perform an upgrade, or attempt another massive change to prevent the problem from arising again. If not, then figure out why it happened in the first place; you’ll also need to communicate these intentions to your customers.
You don’t need to be too specific, though; sharing which service had an issue may prompt others to try and exploit it. Simply saying that either the issue was rare or that you plan on switching services will be enough.
Keeping Your Operations Running Smoothly
There are many things to consider when your business experiences an outage, from ensuring everyone is safe to solving the problem.
The most important thing to do is to remain calm and patient throughout the process. This is the most immediate action to take, as your team will be doing all they can to resolve the issue, and your patience will be appreciated.
