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Jack Doll jumped as the ringing of his telephone woke
him from a deep slumber. Groggily, he looked at the time as he fumbled
for the phone. It was 4:35 am; whoever it was, they couldn't be calling
with good news. "Hello?" Jack said.
"Mr. Doll, this is Sergeant Kirk Bendickson from the
police department. There is a fire at 5136 Main Street. I understand
that you are the
owner of that property, is that correct?"
"My store," Jack
exclaimed. "What's going on?"
"All we know right now is that approximately 30 minutes
ago, a passing motorist reported a fire. Our firefighters are on the
scene. The fire department has the property registered as containing
hazardous chemicals. We need you to report to the scene to help the fire
fighters identify areas in which they may find hazardous, explosive, or
flammable materials."
"I'll be right there," Jack said, and dropped the phone. By 6:30, Jack was seated in his pickup truck, watching
seven years of his life go up in smoke from half a block away. He'd
built his commercial paint store from the ground up, starting in his
garage. He focused on shipping specialty coatings to commercial
building contractors.
The temperature was below zero; the
water applied by the fire department to the building sheeted the street
and four surrounding businesses with a heavy coat of ice. Listening to
his truck's radio, he hear reports of the fire from local
reporters every 11 minutes. Because it was located on two major streets
in town, the fire was a huge news item. The fire would complicate the
morning commute for thousands of people. Jack didn't much care.
He called his four employees and told them about the
fire at 7:15 am. All four of them had families to support and had been
with him for at least three years. Next, Jack called his telephone
answering service.
Explaining the situation, he was surprised to learn that they could help
him keep his business running despite the fire.
By 9:00 am, the answering service was handling all the calls
for Jack's paint business. New orders were being taken and existing
accounts were being served. One of Jack's regular employees was working
from home, placing and tracking purchase orders and coordinating efforts
with the service. In the meantime, Jack was taking care of his losses,
working with firefighters to resolve potential chemical hazards and
taking care of his loss with his insurance agent. When he called in at
noon, he was surprised to discover that not only were his catalog
clients receiving uninterrupted service, but that the business had been
flooded with calls from well-wishers in the community.
For two weeks, this
is how they worked; Jack's employees
worked from home on procurement and logistics while the answering
service handled all order-taking and front-line customer service. By the beginning of
the third week, Jack had located a temporary location four blocks away,
and the retail portion of his business was soon back in operation.
"Without the answering service," Jack said, "we would have been
out of business on day one. Instead, our catalog business continued,
totally
uninterrupted. I don't know if we'd be here today without the kind of
support we received, not only from our telephone answering service, but
from everyone in our community."
Learn more about telephone
answering services and discover how they might be able to help you.
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