Choosing a Company for Digital Services
Digital services can be an important option for survivors to connect to advocacy and support services. In choosing a company for digital services, the first step is to think about which type of technology is best suited to the services you want to offer. Once you have decided on the type of technology, there may be more than one company to choose from. There are some key considerations when choosing a vendor: cost, features, data security and privacy, accessibility, customer service, and downtime.
Cost
When assessing vendors, bear in mind that higher cost doesn’t necessarily equal a more suitable product. Depending on the type of digital service you want to offer, some platforms may be free. For example, if a program wanted to use video calls to occasionally supplement their in-person services, some platforms offer free versions of their software. When evaluating vendors that offer free products or services, check whether they restrict the length of calls or set a low number of allowable calls per month.
Vendors that do charge a service fee can have additional costs, including the costs of initial startup, add-on features, ongoing fees and maintenance. Other costs could include upgrading hardware (computer, server, memory) and even the cost of training staff to learn how to use the tool. Review “Total Cost of Ownership” in Assessing Readiness for Digital Services for an overview of all the costs that might be involved in offering digital services.
Features & Customizability
Many free digital tools (messaging services, video chats, online forums) are designed to be used by individuals. They are often not robust enough to be used by an organization that requires more than one staff person or device to be connected at the same time. Choose a tool that can support your staffing resources and capacity with features that can help you appropriately deliver the service you want to provide. Vendors with upgradable features and customizations can make the tool work better for your program.
Consider what features will be most helpful and appropriate for your services. For example, some texting tools may offer an automated, artificial-intelligence-based service (called chatbots) that will communicate pre-determined responses based on what the survivor texts. While this option may appear helpful in lightening the workload of staff, a non-human, computer-generated response to someone who is in crisis or trauma is not appropriate beyond basic referral services.
See the Best Practices resources for more information on platform-specific features that may be helpful, as well as the ones to avoid or disable.
Video Call Best Practices (Coming Soon)
Data Security & Privacy
Digital tools can capture a lot of information about users as part of their standard functionality. This can include “incidental” data, such as phone number, IP address, user name, geolocation, etc.; information about the communication (date, time, duration, account information); and sometimes the content of the conversations. In many cases, this information is available to the company and may be stored on the users’ devices after the communication ends, or on the company’s servers.
Digital tools designed to be used by e-commerce collect even more data, with the intention of helping their customer (your program) collect, retain, and synthesize as much data as possible about those you engage with. This excessive data collection can be problematic for survivors’ privacy and your program’s confidentiality obligations.
Most domestic violence and sexual assault programs are legally and ethically obligated by confidentiality laws and regulations to ensure that the program does not disclose client information to external parties, such as a technology company (read a primer about confidentiality). Select a vendor that only collects the necessary information in order to conduct the service and does not retain it once the session has ended. You should also review the company’s privacy policies to learn about how they collect, store, and share or sell any data they collect from their users. For more information, read our FAQs on Record Retention & Deletion.
When talking with a potential technology vendor, ask what information they collect, store, and can access (in addition to reviewing their privacy policy). This includes during their regular course of business, but also in response to legal requests for information of their users. Ask what identifying information the technology itself incidentally collects, such as users’ IP address, browser history, date and time of conversations, etc., as well as how long this data is retained. For a full list of questions when choosing a vendor, use our Checklist to help guide your decision-making process. If you have questions about specific tools, you can reach out to us for assistance.
Accessibility
How survivors can access your services is one of the most important factors when considering any technology tool. This includes any barriers survivors could encounter in setting up or using the tool. This could be because of limited technology resources, skills, or because the tool is not designed for people with disabilities. When we are planning digital services and choosing tools, it is critical that we remember that there are many kinds of disabilities, and no single tool is likely to create access for all types of disabilities.
We recommend that any tool you use does not require a survivor to download an app or create a user account. This is important because those extra steps can be challenging for someone in crisis or trauma, someone with learning or cognitive disabilities, and can also pose safety or privacy risks if someone else has access to a survivor’s devices or accounts.
Video and other similar tools may require strong internet connection or cellular data. Many people do not have consistent or reliable access to the internet, WiFi, or cellular data plans. Be sure to provide other options for communication.
When choosing a video or voice tool, look for the capacity to include closed captioning and ASL interpretation for people who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing. When choosing any tool that has text, whether that’s exclusively words through chat or text, or just the text on buttons, menus, and options for navigating a tool, look for compatibility with screen readers for people with low vision.
For people who use a language other than those your advocates also speak or write, look for ways to bring translation of written words or interpretation for spoken words. Machine- or computer-based translation is not suitable for work with survivors. Any translation or interpretation should be done by a certified professional.
Accessibility is not just important for survivors. Your staff and volunteer advocates need to be given training and the opportunity to test the tools out before using them with survivors.
Customer Service
Depending on the tool you choose, the customer service will vary. Some companies have a support form that is set up to receive concerns, ranging from reporting abusive content to forgotten passwords. Other cmpanies have a dedicated business support team that will respond more quickly, while others have no customer service at all. Some companies may charge a fee for more in-depth customer service. Do your research and read reviews or speak with others who have used the platform to learn if they are responsive and helpful to their customers.
Consider whether your staff and the survivors who reach out to you would be able to easily troubleshoot any technical issues that arise. Or perhaps you might have IT staff or consultants who can troubleshoot technical issues. If you don’t have the ability to troubleshoot technical concerns, and the vendor doesn’t have a dedicated or quick customer service response, this might result in your service being down longer than you want.
Service Downtime and Cancellation
Some vendors may take their services offline for a variety of reasons, including unplanned outages, upgrades and maintenances, or they shut down. Ask your vendors how they handle planned and unplanned outages. Do they notify customers when an unplanned outage occurs? If so, when and how? Ask your vendor if they take the service offline to perform upgrades and maintenances. If they take the service offline, how often and how long does that take? Will users be required to re-download the software or app after the upgrade? And finally, what is their notification plan with their customers if they shut down or sell their service?
Next Steps
Cost, features, data security and privacy, customer service, and service downtime need to be considered as a whole, since they impact each other. A tool that is relatively low in cost might not provide the features you need or the data security you require. Some tools may have features that could be a privacy risk for survivors or put you at risk of violating confidentiality. Check out the other resources in our Digital Services Toolkit
