Value of an ERP - Polar Vortex Storm

6/26/2014 (Permalink)

Be SERVPRO Ready

It was 9:30am on Tuesday January 7. The Midwest had just endured its first “polar vortex” and we were finally enjoying a warm up, it was a balmy 31 degrees. I and one of my crew were on our first of what would be dozens of frozen pipe water jobs over the next two weeks. Halfway through this job I received a call from the office. “Jerry, one of our commercial Emergency Ready Profile (ERP) customers just called in a job for their Sullivan location. A pipe in the ceiling broke and several rooms are affected”. As I took down the details, I could hear the other line ringing in the background. Another new job, undoubtedly. We were about to get really busy! “Let the customer know we are 15 minutes away”, I said. Quickly, I grabbed a crew member and off we went.

As we arrived, we were greeted by the administrator. “Thanks for getting here so quickly”, he said. Since we were already familiar with the layout of the facility and we already had a relationship with the facilitator and staff, there was no time wasted. We accessed the damage together which consisted of two suites that were heavily saturated from ceiling to floor. Thankfully, the two suites were not occupied by residents. We quickly began the emergency mitigation and within a few days we had everything dried out and it was business as usual for our valued customer. This was a positive outcome for our customer, but things could have turned out much differently.

Why did this catastrophe have such a positive outcome? Because, this facility had the foresight to develop a preparedness plan for this very situation. Months before anyone ever heard of a polar vortex this business invested the time to work with Servpro to develop their Emergency Ready Plan (ERP). An ERP is a no cost preparedness plan we develop for your business so when catastrophe strikes you and your business are prepared. Did you know that as many as 50% of business may never recover following a disaster? Of the businesses that survive, the overwhelming majority of them had a preparedness plan in place. Can your business afford not to have an ERP? All it costs is an hour of your time and it might save your business someday!!

Hannah is now doing ERP’s for the facilities other locations in St. Clair, Union and Washington. Give us a call and we can show you an example of an ERP. I guarantee you will want one for your business and you will see the value in it for your customers also.

SERVPRO is “Faster To Any Disaster”...... Jerry Alvey