Crews don’t resist new tools. They resist tools that fail them on a bad day. The plan below is built to find those bad days during a pilot, while the radios are still on everyone’s belt, so the switch is boring by the time you make it. It assumes TalkBeam, but the steps work for any push-to-talk app.
Before you start: the radios you should keep
- Mission-critical and public-safety radio. Fire, search and rescue, public works and anyone dispatched on a P25 or LMR system should keep it for that traffic. Push-to-talk on phones complements it.
- Places with no signal. Push-to-talk apps need cellular data or Wi-Fi. Where there’s neither, keep a radio.
- Hazardous and classified areas. Only use devices approved for that area under your site’s rules.
- On the water. Keep marine VHF for vessel traffic and distress calls.
Days 1–3: Take inventory and set goals
Write down what you have and what “better” means before anyone installs anything.
- Count radios, chargers, batteries and accessories, and who carries each one.
- List your radio channels and who uses each one. This becomes your channel plan.
- Add up what radios cost you: purchases, repairs, lost units, repeaters, rentals and licenses. The radio cost calculator does the math.
- Collect the complaints: dead spots, lost radios, “nobody heard me,” no record of what was said.
- Write three to five success criteria, for example “supervisors reach every crew without a phone call” and “no dead spots we haven’t planned for.”
- Pick a pilot crew that works together every day, with a supervisor who wants it to work. Name one owner for the project.
Days 4–5: Test coverage where you actually work
This is the step that decides everything else. Walk and drive your real locations with a phone on the network your crew uses.
- Test the hard places: basements, stairwells, elevators, freezers, parking garages, the far end of the yard, rural routes.
- Talk from each spot to someone in another location, and note where audio drops or delays.
- Mark every dead spot on a map or a list.
- Decide what to do about each one: add Wi-Fi, accept it (and tell people), or keep a radio there.
Days 6–7: Set up your company
Mirror what works about your radio setup, and fix what doesn’t.
- Start a free team trial and sign in to the company console.
- Recreate your channels by crew, site or function. Radio “Channel 1, Dispatch” becomes a Dispatch channel everyone joins; “Channel 3, Yard” becomes Yard.
- Give supervisors their role, so they can use priority talk and all-call.
- Pick audio gear: a single earbud or a headset for noisy work, CarPlay for vehicles.
- Decide your location-sharing policy: which channels share location, and when.
- Write down what not to say on channels, such as patient details, student information or anything your industry keeps confidential.
Days 8–14: Pilot, side by side with the radios
The pilot crew uses TalkBeam for real work while keeping their radios on. You’re looking for surprises.
- Run the 10-minute training at the start of a shift, and have everyone join with the company code.
- Ask the crew to use TalkBeam first and fall back to the radio only when it fails, and to say when it does.
- Try every supervisor tool: an all-call, priority talk, a private direct talk, the live map.
- Run an SOS drill, announced, and time how long it takes for someone to respond.
- Check in with the supervisor every day for five minutes: what broke, what was better, what was confusing.
Days 15–21: Expand and turn on the safety features
If the pilot met your criteria, add the next crews and the features radios never had.
- Add the next one or two crews, starting with the ones the pilot crew talks to most.
- Add your sites to automated broadcasts so weather, heat and air quality alerts are read aloud. (Enterprise)
- Turn on crash and man-down detection for drivers and people working at height, and lone-worker check-ins for anyone working alone. (Enterprise)
- Run a missed-check-in drill with a supervisor watching.
- Search the first two weeks of transcripts for something real, like a job number or a location, to show crews what the record is for.
Days 22–27: Put the radios in the charger
Run a week on TalkBeam alone, except in the dead spots you planned for.
- Radios stay in the charger, with a few set aside for the dead spots and roles you decided to keep them for.
- Supervisors log every problem, however small.
- Check your success criteria each day.
- Ask the crew directly: is this better, the same or worse than radios?
Days 28–30: Decide and cut over
Make the call with the crew leads in the room.
- Review the success criteria, the problem log and the crew’s feedback.
- Decide per crew: switch, switch with a few radios kept, or keep radios.
- Choose a plan (Teams or Enterprise) before the trial ends to keep your channels and settings.
- Update your procedures, onboarding and safety plans to name TalkBeam and the radios you kept.
- Retire, resell or repurpose the radios you no longer need, and cancel rentals or repeater service you’ve stopped using.
The 10-minute training
- Install TalkBeam and open Me → Company. Enter the 8-character company code.
- Pick your audio: earbud, headset, glasses, Apple Watch or CarPlay.
- Hold the button to talk; let go to listen. Try Hybrid mode: tap once to open the mic, tap again to close it.
- Switch channels, and find the channel you’ll use most.
- Find the live map and turn location sharing on for the channels that use it.
- Practice SOS: hold it, watch teammates tap On my way, then cancel.
- Lock the phone and keep talking: TalkBeam stays live in your pocket.
TalkBeam isn’t an emergency service and doesn’t contact 911. In an emergency, call 911 first.