Hurricanes: Finding the Opportunity in the Crisis

No doubt, a hurricane is a force to be reckoned with. It can cost a business thousands in damages and lost revenue but believe it or not… a hurricane also represents an opportunity for most, if not all businesses to make money. 

Experts estimate that 2017’s Hurricanes Harvey and Irma caused up to $200 billion in damages. When the damage is that extensive many individuals and businesses are affected in several ways.

The Bad News For Your Business

  • Employees are unable to come to work due to dealing with their crises.
  • Your brick-and-mortar businesses might have to stay closed while dealing with damages to physical structures.
  • Even online businesses might suffer due to downed phone lines and no staff available to answer questions or provide support.

The Good News For Your Business

  •  If you provide any kind of recovery service in the aftermath of a hurricane, then you will be in high demand.
  • Even if you don’t provide a recovery service, by having your “act together”, you can make a favorable impression on customers and clients that will help set you apart from competitors who might be floundering in the aftermath of the crisis.

What Happens When No One Picks Up the Phone

  • You very likely could lose out on that potential customer or client.
  • You could stress and disappoint current customers or clients, weakening your reputation.

We don’t control the weather and some things are simply outside of our control. But to the greatest extent possible, we could be prepared to deal with crises. What is a potential client worth? Possibly thousands of dollars in repeat business upsells, and potential referrals. When you crunch the numbers you realize that every lead is valuable.

What You Can Do: Have a Plan

  •  Have a plan ready.
  • Be that business that does answer its phones, day and night, 24/7/365 days of a year. Even in a crisis, be that business that never leaves its clients and customers in the lurch.
  • Every call that comes in after-hours or during a natural disaster presents even more of an opportunity because you can create instant positive associations which will make you be perceived as trustworthy, on top of things, and therefore dependable.

How Do We Help? We’re Ready to Answer When You Can’t

You can’t guarantee that your phone lines will still be working after a hurricane hits your area, so we recommend relying on virtual assistants and call answering services instead. AnswerHero has helped hundreds of businesses by providing a free local phone number, so callers will never feel like they’re dialing an answering service.

In fact, because our team provides live professional, knowledgeable answering services, your callers may never realize that their calls are being handled by a virtual receptionist team. They’ll just know that yours is the business that was there for them in their time of need.

We provide free email delivery, fax delivery or SMS text delivery of messages. Therefore, we can alert you to your customers’ needs through whatever method is available to you in the wake of the storm.

Prepared Day or Night

Disaster recovery situations don’t wait for business hours. Thanks to AnswerHero, that’s not an issue. We provide 24/7/365 service so that we’re there for you whenever your customers need you.

Our 100% bilingual service means that we can help more of your callers. During a high-stress situation, no one should have to fumble for words in an unfamiliar language. In both Spanish and English, we’re prepared to help.

Become Equipped for Emergencies So You Can Turn Them Into Opportunities

Some calls that come in after a disaster are high-priority emergencies. Our team works with you to create a plan for urgent call answering.

For situations that can wait a bit, we offer message-taking, or we can set the next available appointment. In true emergencies, we can provide call routing and transfer according to your instructions.

Let our team help you and your customers make it through the 2018 hurricane season.

The time to get ready is now. For less than the price of a coffee a day, you can buy peace of mind and give yourself a competitive edge over other businesses.

Contact us today for more information or check out our pricing page to see how affordable our packages are.

Have Questions? Give us a call