Out-of-hours alerts for shops, restaurants and hospitality

A chiller warms up overnight, an alarm goes off, the card machines stop. The person who can deal with it needs to know now, not when the shop opens. Tocsin texts and phones the right person for that site and keeps going until someone answers.

No card needed for the trial. Tocsin is a product of Espresso Group Ltd, a UK company.

The problems it solves

• Cold chain. A fridge or freezer temperature alert reaches the keyholder or the refrigeration engineer before the stock is lost.
• Alarms and break-ins. An intruder or fire alarm calls out the keyholder on duty, with a manager as the next step.
• Tills, card machines and online ordering. A system going offline at the start of a busy service reaches whoever supports it.
• Gas, leaks and equipment faults. Urgent faults go to the right contractor, not an inbox.

A chiller fault at 01:30

1. 01:30 Alert receivedThe temperature monitor emails Tocsin, marked critical.
2. 01:30 Text to the keyholder on callTocsin finds who covers that site tonight and texts them, with an email too.
3. 01:33 No answer, so the phone ringsA call reads the alert aloud, twice, in a clear British voice.
4. 01:36 Keyholder replies "ACK"Escalation stops. The record shows who was contacted and when they took it on.

If nobody had answered, the next step would have contacted the area manager.

Set up in an afternoon

1. Add your people. Keyholders, managers, and the engineers and contractors you rely on, each with a mobile number.
2. Build the rota. A schedule for each region or group of sites, with overrides for holidays and swaps.
3. Decide who gets called. Text first, call two minutes later, then the area manager.
4. Connect your systems. Point each site's or system's urgent alerts at its own Tocsin address, and route each to the right schedule.

Connecting your systems

Tocsin accepts alerts from anything that can send an email or a webhook, so there is nothing to install. Many temperature monitors, alarm systems and EPOS or ordering platforms can send an email when something goes wrong. Create an inbox in Tocsin for each site or system, point the urgent notifications at it, and tell Tocsin which sending address to accept so nobody else can raise alerts.

Email inboxes are included on the Team plan. We haven't built a connection to any particular product, so check that yours can send email or webhook notifications. If you're not sure, ask us and we'll help work it out.

Why it suits shops and restaurants

• The right person for each site. Route by site or region, so a keyholder is not called about a shop they don't cover.
• Keyholder rotas that cope with real life. Swaps and holiday cover are overrides, not spreadsheet edits.
• Contractors included. Anyone with a mobile can be on a rota.
• No app to install. Texts and calls work on any phone.
• A clear record. When a fault was reported, who was contacted and who responded.

What it costs

The Team plan is £25 a month + VAT for your organisation and includes unlimited schedules, phone call alerts, custom escalation policies and email inboxes. Texts and phone calls use prepaid credits, one credit each, from 20p down to 10p in bigger bundles. A text followed by a call to one engineer uses two credits, 40p at the standard rate. Emails are free. The free trial covers everything by email so you can try it first.