In the roofing industry, the summer months means long days, large call volumes, and tons of back-end work to make your roofing company a summer success. This also means that hurricane season is upon us. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Atlantic hurricane season occurs from June 1st through November 31st. This length of time is slightly longer for those on the Pacific coast. The NOAA predicts an above average 2024 hurricane season with multiple level 3 or higher category storms. Hurricane category storms of varying levels can cause wind damage, tear off shingles, and in worst cases scenarios rip entire roofs from homes. When your service areas are hit heavily by strong category storms, you need to be prepared. The same goes for homeowners in high-risk areas. When they call to schedule preventative maintenance on their roofs; make sure your clients are prepared for storm damage, and you are armed with the tools and materials to garner all the business you can. Part of this preparatory stage should include reaching out to your local Responsive Answering Service. This allows you to make use of all the benefits a roofing answering service can offer a busy independent contractor or parent organization.
Share theAdvise the latest information on hurricane preparedness.
Homeowners need expert guidance on the latest strategies they should employ for prepping and fortifying their roofs. To ensure routine maintenance and preventative repairs can be completed in time, it could be beneficial to send flyers and/or email current and past homeowners the most recent information. You don’t want individuals to wait until the last minute to schedule a roof inspection. So, give them plenty of time to schedule and finance. When you work with an answering service, their team can create a specific option for roofing inspections. This allows you to run beneficial inspection promotions or other types of incentives. The roofing industry, like many other fields, can easily become jargon heavy. A roofing answering service is one way to help combat the use of jargon, by keeping it simple and in easy-to-understand terms. You know that a home in a high-risk hurricane zone is more susceptible to excess water flow on roofing systems. This is why ensuring counter flashing is tightly secured and additions such as chimney crickets can be vital for roof integrity. However, your clients do not. The answering service allows you to spend less time explaining complicated and sometimes misleading roofing terms. All the while, their expert customer service expertise is able to ease your clients’ concerns and welcome them into your services.
Take the lead on quality compliance and materials.
The best way to promote your business is through the help of an excellent in-house quality compliance department. One way to make sure your team has enough time to worry about draft orders and financing woes is to employ an answering service. At any time, clients can call your business line and give their issue or question to a live person, instead of a voicemail box. This allows your project coordinators and managers to efficiently triage requests, and follow-up with issues as needed. This helps you maintain sound roofing systems on all your clients’ homes. So, your crews can perform patching and fix leaks on an as needed basis; before your team becomes overwhelmed by new and current clients with extensive damage. One way to prevent repetitive maintenance on past home projects is through quality materials. This could help keep repeat callers to a minimum. When you work with an answering service, they can outline the quality of your materials, qualifications, licenses, and your suppliers. Working with double underlayment, and reinforced home systems can maintain security and structural integrity. Having specific resources available to your answering service can help them maintain the same level of reliability and respectability. These recommendations assist your answering service team. While providing opportunities to familiarize themselves with your brand and mission before emergencies occur.
Keep lines of communication open in emergency situations.
Don’t wait till the last minute to relay an emergency preparedness plan to your answering service! It is important to have an appropriate response plan in place for emergencies, like hurricanes, which could impact your business volume. These plans help you know what to expect and help your answering service know what to tell callers. Ensuring your service lines stay open and available. Whether this means taking overflow calls, taking all calls, relaying messages at certain intervals, or holding certain requests. When your roofing answering service knows your expectations in an emergency they can implement them at a moment’s notice. Roofing answering services have resources available to handle emergencies while following your personal requests to a tee. Take extra time to make sure your team knows what to do. Whenever a hurricane or other emergency hits, it is imperative to reach out to your answering service contact as quickly as possible. This gives them the ability to implement your emergency response plan rapidly. That way, changes can be made, and specific phrases can be relayed to all callers. When an emergency preparedness plan is not in place, your team may have to ask callers to try again later, and you don’t want to miss any calls. With the help of a clear and readily available plan, complete with guidelines that help maintain concrete procedures for different roofing service types, your clients will be well taken care of in emergency situations.
Create a customized schedule for on-call technicians.
After your emergency preparedness plan is set up and ready for implementation. Take the extra time to work with your answering service to make sure your business’s on-call schedule is up to date as well. Emergency contacts for your roofing company should be easy to find for your roofing answering service teams. One of the best ways to make sure this happens is to work through escalation procedures. So that everyone who attempts to reach your team gets the right person every time. Another way is to plan ahead for protocol changes: for unreachable individuals, changes to the schedule, or if you want to be contacted first in an emergency. A clear and established contact order for you and your partners allows your company to efficiently handle the calls and messages you receive from the answering service. For larger businesses with multiple divisions, answering services can adequately route all your calls through a centralized system, without any hassle on your part. Your roofing answering service is adept at managing larger corporations’ call requirements, with complex call routing and on-call scheduling. After all, making sure that your answering service has the most current information could mean the difference between missing important emergency calls from clients, and maintaining a smooth flow of communication.
Increased call volumes highlight the adaptability of your answering service.
Natural disasters are challenging to predict, and even more difficult to respond to adequately. There are numerous logistical concerns that may affect your roofing company’s response to clients during a hurricane or other natural disaster. Working through difficult scenarios is one of your answering service’s specialties! When call volumes are high, more agents can be allocated to tackle excessive wait times. Every call that comes through your service line is important, and the answering service strives to provide consistent services. Regardless, if your account receives dozens or hundreds of calls a day. Adequate recording measures are part of the structure that allows your answering service to work through multiple service types and structures with ease. Messages are archived and available for your review. Lists of messages could be a possibility during a hurricane or other event. When call logs are extreme, the answering service makes adjustments to better serve you and your clients.
Maintain a level of unmatched professionalism throughout the year.
During hurricane season and throughout all of the seasons your answering service has your back. Professionalism is part of the answering service’s training protocols. Any agent that might answer your business line has been thoroughly vetted, with the skills to handle even the most challenging callers. Answering service operators are well-equipped to take hundreds of calls a day for a variety of service types. In line with these training procedures, call centers may have multiple offices or locations. This combined with consistent training and communication within your answering service, allows them to provide a variety of agents to fit your unique needs. Many roofing answering services have the ability to take calls in multiple languages. Spanish speaking clients need to have an accessible call experience in your service areas. Stand apart from your competitors by ensuring your answering service is well equipped to maintain the level of service your business is aiming for. Emergency preparedness is an important part of the roofing industry. This encompasses complying with OSHA standards, having a strategy in place for emergencies, and maintaining an excellent working relationship with your roofing answering service. Thus, allowing your crews to be safe and your phones to be handled during emergencies of any kind. This hurricane season: make sure your roofing business has a plan for how you’d like calls handled. While increased revenue is a symptom of widespread home damage, take the time to check on your loved ones, clients, crews, and answering service. Roofing contractors and crews are a necessary service for hard hit areas. Getting ahead of the storm allows you to provide your clients with the best possible services. So that your clients’ roofs are capable of weathering storm surges, torrential downpours, and driving wind. Don’t let hurricane season sweep your roofing business away; be prepared for whatever mother nature throws at your clients with the help of a roofing answering service.
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