RAVE Alert Pros and Cons

Efficiency of Rave Templates is very helpful Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Not being able to opt-in members to change preferences. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lake County, Indiana, has used the RAVE Alert system since it acquired RapidNotify. Under the old system, when an update needed to be made, Johnny would call our office to ask for his number to be updated, and Grandma would call to say she moved. We have nearly 500,000 citizens, and there's no way our office can handle that call volume, nor will people typically let us know that anyhow. I asked Rave to turn on the option for citizens to sign up on their own and manage their accounts. We have them sign up through Smart911 exclusively, and from there, they can create a profile, maintain their account and information, and best of all, Smart911 integrates Rave, so it's a one-stop-shop. For that reason, we don't allow registration through the Rave site, but you have that option as well. With the blessing of our Board of Commissioners, we have onboarded 6 of 19 municipalities so they can send alerts to their community. It saves them money because they were paying for a separate service. This makes it a greater value to the entire county. We hope to onboard those that haven't yet by the end of 2021. Their support is professional as well. Turnaround time and follow-up are typically more than acceptable. They are also not closed-minded when it comes to feedback and suggestions. They recently implemented a system-wide change that makes the system more user-friendly for the citizens. All in all, there's nothing negative I can say about Rave. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Honestly, there's nothing I dislike about Rave. We had our bumps and bruises at the onset, but they go out of their way to get to know their customers. To me, customer service is the absolute top expectation I have of all vendors. If that is lacking, they're out the door. I don't have the power to terminate them, but I can de-recommend them if appropriate. I recently recommended a five-year extension of our contract vs. a three-year extension. This went beyond the cost savings. The recommendation was based on overall performance since inception three years earlier. If I'm fair and honest, the whole three-year term would be an A-. That's because any hurdles and issues were overcome and the efforts to go over and above count as extra credit. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Rave is dependable. I know I can trust it to send out the message to the correct list. I particularly like how easy it is to designate somebody as a list manager for only one list. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Like any off-the-shelf software, you have to make your needs fit its solution. We would like to have more lists available but can't justify the cost of a list for only a few specific users in a very limited use-case. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

RAVE Alerts can be sent over a variety of platforms: targeted messages via text message, email or voice message, social media, in-house television screens, over the downloaded RAVE Guardian App Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We added on RAVE Guardian after already having RAVE Alert, it is apparently very complex to align the due dates on the bills and so we have to send 2 checks at different times in the fiscal year and the contracts have different end-dates. It would seem that some work could be done in-house between the sales personnel and contracts or billing personnel to a more sensible solution for the customers would be helpful. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is quick and easy to use. You can keep all of your lists all together in one place and it is easy to make changes in them. It allows us to send out mass communications to more than 800 employees at one time. It is quick & efficient. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There is no downside that I have found yet. We love the system and use it as our primary mass communication tool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The platform is so flexible to set up various alert types based upon your community and agency needs. Including pre-canned alerts you only need to make a few clicks and they push, to customizable alert methods to reach different audiences. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I wish the Facebook alert method had the ability to add images to it. Images are worth a thousand words! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Easy to set up alerts and send in emergencies Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Snap send has some limitations on flexibility, but easy to work around. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Easy set up, quick alerting to multiple devices in 3 clicks. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We really do not have any dislikes. We wish there was a way to send a message through a ticker on a computer screen. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Support for numerous alerting methodologies, Email, SMS, CAP, RSS, Social Media, voice. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Granular custom permission for users, a test environment for training implementation would be excellent Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is effortless to use for our dispatchers Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I would like it to be easier for our staff to add or remove numbers for our citizens. We have elderly that just want a number added for emergency notifications and don't want to sign up for anything online Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.