Contracting Early

An interview excerpt with Joe Rothwell, CEO

Interviewer: Why should I contract a restoration company ahead of time?

Joe: Well, a big reason is just to have it in case the event it does happen. Having the peace of mind of knowing who they’re going to contact to come help clean up after the storm passes. If they do not have that company in place pre-event it becomes kind of a crapshoot as to who they’re going to hire and what their reputation is. You know, do they have proper insurance? Do they have proper background checks on their employees? How are they going to bill us for the work? There are horror stories about hotel companies, and not just hotel companies, but homeowners. Other property owners that have had bad experiences with restoration companies that are coming in chasing work, so to speak, and they don’t know who they’re really dealing with. They don’t have a relationship there, the trust, the rapport, all the things that ACT does pre-event with our clients, developing that relationship, that trust, the pricing. How are we going to be able to respond in the advantage? It’s a wide spread storm. There are lots of properties that are hit. How are we going to be able to handle that for multiple locations? All those things that we set up in advance are critical, but the smaller groups that may not think of it have to have somebody, they really do, and they really need to be thinking so they’re not stuck after the event exchanging business cards with somebody they don’t know. They’ve already got that established up front.