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 Avenue. You are the owner of that property, correct?"

"My store," Jack said. "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 specialized in 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. Then, Jack called his telephone answering service. Explaining the situation, he was surprised to learn that they could help 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 to place and track 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, that's 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 uninterrupted. I don't know if we'd be here today without the kind of support we received from our telephone answering service and from everyone in the community."

Learn more about telephone answering services and discover how the might be able to help you.