Bay of Plenty Civil Defence operators say lessons have been learned after a mass email and text test alert at the weekend.
The alerting system on the weekend was planned to be sent out at 10.15am but some people did not receive the message until much later.
Bay of Plenty Civil Defence Emergency Management Group team leader Angela Reade said the focus was now on rectifying these issues.
"Overall, we were happy with the test . . . We are also really pleased with the buy-in from the community and the number of people who signed up to receive these alerts. This is a good sign that people are thinking carefully about their preparedness for an emergency and taking all the steps they can,'' she said.
"However, we did have a number of issues including some people not receiving messages until many hours later and some people not receiving them at all. There are a number of possible reasons for this and we are working closely with the system provider and other relevant groups to get to the root of the problem to resolve it. This is a priority for our group at the moment," Ms Reade said.
"This is why we test our systems to ensure that things run smoothly on the day".
People are encouraged to sign up to the service and to follow Civil Defence on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date with the latest Civil Defence information.
Ms Reade said feedback was important and was keen to hear from people, whether they received messages or not, via www.bopcivildefence.govt.nz.
Feedback will help us get a better handle on where and what time the issues were for some subscribers, she said.
"A final thanks to all those who got involved with Get Ready week and took the opportunity to make sure their family and friends were prepared should a real disaster strike. We are all working towards a more resilient Bay of Plenty community.''