Disaster Planning for Businesses in Western New York

9/1/2020 (Permalink)

Don't be a statistic. Get an ERP.

We’re going to ask you some questions that might give you anxiety. If you’re looking for an easy read, we once did an interview about grapefruit with our office administrator that might scratch that itch.

Imagine you’re the facilities manager for a line of 50 doctor’s offices in Western New York. You are responsible for dealing with disasters.

Then, imagine you are on vacation for the first time in three years. You are in Hawaii. You are drinking a lemonade. You are about to take a nap. Then, you get a frantic after-hours phone call from the office manager at your biggest location:

“The sprinklers are going off, but there’s no fire. If our million-dollar radiology machine gets any wetter, it’ll break. What do we do?”

Do you think that you could direct your office manager to find the shutoff valve for the sprinkler system over the phone?

Could you do it in under five minutes, before that radiology machine breaks?

Could you get your manager a list of emergency contacts before the ice in your lemonade melted?

95% of people will say no. 4% are either lying, or they’re the people who installed the sprinkler system.

The remaining 1% worked with SERVPRO of The Southtowns to create an Emergency Ready Profile, or ERP. ERPs are concise documents that collect vital details about your facilities so that you can act fast in case of disaster, wherever you are. These details include shut-off valve locations, priority areas and contact information for all vendors and stakeholders so that no matter who is on site, you can have peace of mind that the correct steps are being taken in case of disaster.

We won’t lie to you: ERPs are a bit of an investment. But less than you think – we do most of the heavy lifting on our end. We just need you to take an hour or so to walk through the facility with us.

As far as the financial investment: it’s free. No cost at all except for a little bit of your time. We’re just happy that you’re prepared. Considering the fact that 50% of businesses that suffer disasters never reopen, and that the ones that do reopen tend to have preparedness plans in place, we’d actually say that an ERP is a pretty hefty cost savings for you.

How do you start the ERP process? Simple. Fill out this form and we’ll get started.

More of a phone person? Give us a call at 716-646-6684 and ask for Dan. He’ll take care of you.

Happy National Preparedness Month!