3 Tips To Advise Your Commercial Clients Before And During A Water Damage Situation ( Part 2 )

1. Cloud Based Phone Systems- If you client doesn't have a cloud-based phone system, they should start looking now. When a water damage occurs, the whole office can be in a complete disarray. Desks can be on blocks or water damaged, and air movers, dehumidifiers, etc. can be so noisy that it's impossible to get any work done. Imagine if the commercial space is involved in a large fire and everything is destroyed. 

Forwarding all your incoming calls to cell phones is not only an inconvenience, but it can be impossible to give the appearance that you don’t have control of the operations of the company. 

The solution is simple. Have the phone system changed to a cloud-based phone system. As simple as a few key strokes, the whole phone system can be transferred anywhere. 

For example, at our SI Restoration offices, we had a river flood that damaged our whole offices. The flood happened at 2 AM and within minutes our office administrator (from her house), had transferred the main line to her cell phone (no need to call the phone company and wait). At 7 AM our employees had come to the office and were handed their desk phones to take home. At home they connected their phones to their computers. Within an hour not only did our employees take customer calls, but all the phones were interconnected. So, if someone called the main line, the receptionist at her house could transfer the call to an employee at their home. Customers had no idea we had a flood and couldn't operate in our offices.

We were in a disaster situation ourselves , but our clients were being taken care including handling 15 customer damages that day 

But what happens if we had a fire and all the desks and phones were lost? Well that’s easy. Our cloud-based system is designed so that our employees can use an app on their phone and can connect in the same way as in the scenario just mentioned. 

So, as you can see there is no excuse that customers cannot be serviced for any reason. 

2. No Electricity, No Elevator, No HVAC - Let's imagine your client had a massive water damage and it effected the power to the location as well. To make it worse the power is out on the whole block. Waiting till the night of the damage to find an electrician and a generator maybe challenging to say the least. My clients have experienced situations where their favorite electrician doesn't answer the phone. Finding the right generator to run their office or building is hard to find as well.

So, what does one do now before the unexpected event happens? 

Well the client has two choices 

A. The clientwould arrange to have the correct subcontractors available and keep the list up to date. With great understanding, most clients (unless there in facilities or property management), will not take the time to consistently update their list of subcontractors to handle these situations. This situation is usually not the best avenue. 

B. Have an experienced emergency clean up (mitigation) contractor that not only has experience in restoration, but also serious contacts and relationships to arrange sub-contractors such as electricians, plumbers, HVAC, elevator and other building professionals who know and have the licenses to get the building in a running manor in the middle of the night. 

3. Xactimate Estimating Software and Pricing- You may be asking why your client would worry about pricing and how the project is estimated. The answer is they should. 

Many clients have previous relationships and or have in house technicians that can rebuild or repair the damage caused by water. Although on a workmanship basis it maybe the right decision, it becomes a night mare for the client and the contractor who has to work with the insurance company. It's important for clients to be educated in understanding that most insurance adjusters use a software called Xactimate. Xactimate is designed specifically for estimating insurance related damages and pricing. 

In most cases even if the contractor got a hold of the software, understanding when and how to use the software is obvious to the adjuster. When estimated incorrectly. As I explain to all my customers, insurance adjusters don't care whether they payout $ 50.00 or 50 million dollars. The bottom line for the insurance adjuster is if the contractor has the documentation and insurance estimating knowledge to back up what needs to get done. 

The easier solution is to have a contractor who has years of experience in water damage restoration and water damage estimating through Xactimate. 

I hope the above tips will be helpful and make the water damage restoration process just a little bit easier!