Our MSC'S Storm Point of View

9/13/2017 (Permalink)

Flood waters were extremely high and dangerous in Kansas City and Houston.

Hi, my name is Lauren. I am the Marketing Support Coordinator for SERVPRO Anniston, Gadsden and Marshall County. Basically I support the Sales and Marketing Reps in a variety of ways. I maintain our website and social media pages. I attend Business Expos to raise our brand awareness. I assist with CE classes and lunch and learns. I maintain our Workcenter Marketing Database. I work directly with the customers for questions they have on their jobs.

But in July 2017, I helped with the first storm since I started with the company. Kansas City flooded and because we participate on the SERVPRO Storm Team, we were asked to join efforts in Kansas so we did. I got my first look at how SERVPRO Storm Teams work.

Once we committed to participate in this storm event, we started to get our crews ready to go. Vehicles were serviced, supplies were purchased, hotels rooms booked and debriefing conference calls with the Storm Team began, all the while calls from hundreds of homeowners in the Kansas City area were "flooding" our call center. We joined forces with dozens of other franchises around the country to respond to the needs that Kansas City had. I was pleased to be the Storm Team Coordinator for our franchise. Once our Sales Rep, Theresa Smith, was en route, I was given dozens of homeowners' names and numbers to call. These were home and business owners who had called our 1-800-SERVPRO number asking for help. One by one, I called each person on the list, telling them we were on our way, setting appointments for Theresa to see each homeowner individually and assess the damage. Our crew was en route at this point and was ready for work once Theresa signed up people in Kansas City. This process continued for a couple of weeks. I would call the customers setting up an appointment, Theresa would provide onsite estimates. and the crew would do the work.

I enjoyed this new adventure very much. I enjoyed talking with these homeowners. They were tired and frustrated but always so glad to know that help was on the way. They expressed how thankful they were that we were "here to help". I felt that I even bonded with some of these homeowners over the course of these two weeks, sometime just being an ear to listen for them.

So after all the jobs were finished and we were about to send our crew home, we were notified that Kansas City had flooded again. The storm had been reactivated. We sent Theresa back up to Kansas City to start this process again.. So I found myself starting over this process with new homeowners. These poor people, I was thinking! I hated that they were dealing with the same issue again. I just tried to be a voice of comfort and hope as I made my phone calls. Two more weeks...we were finished and sent our crew home! And lo and behold, a week later Kansas City flooded again! This time, our owner Chris Lamey, traveled up ahead of our crew, to meet the homeowners that I had been calling. I was becoming a pro at this process and I found customers really relying on me for info about how the process would work once we arrived. I was learning so much about not only Storm but also about the water mitigation process and I wasn't even there!! It was a pleasure serving in this capacity and doing something new and mostly, helping these homeowners.

We spent another 2 weeks on this time in Kansas City. Just as we were finishing up, Harvey hit Houston. But that's another story....