ServeStar COVID-19 Response Update | Plan of action 3-18-20 : For Immediate Release
To Whom It May Concern:
For ServeStar, the safety of our customers, employees, and their families is of the utmost priority. As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact the nation, ServeStar, your regional commercial plumbing service provider, understands the vital role our service technicians, trainees, and support staff play within the community health eco-system throughout areas in which we operate. Clean running water, hot water systems, and correctly functioning drainage systems are essential to maintaining the health of the public now more than ever. We take seriously our commitment to keeping critical locations, for which we provide service, operational… while ensuring necessary services are provided in the safest manner possible for all.
With that in mind, we would like to update you as to the preventative steps we are taking, or have taken, here at ServeStar to preserve public health. In addition, we will provide updates related to our ongoing efforts to provide continuing, reliable services, to our valued customers regionwide.
Job-site Safety Efforts, Self-Testing, Remote Work Capability, Technical Support:
Sanitation and Safety Supplies: Our service vehicles have been equipped with extra sanitizing cleaners, hand sanitizers, gloves, and other personal protective wear such as tyvek suits, safety glasses, first aid kits, plastic sheeting, heavy duty plastic bags for waste disposal, etc.
Introduction of Mandatory Self Testing: We have instructed our employees in the field to obtain personally (for which we will reimburse), or to a use company provided touch-free digital thermometers as a preventative safety measure to alert those with a temperature and to keep them from interacting with the public.
We have provided all of our employees with a clear and direct guideline to follow on each call to which they are dispatched. This includes each employee checking their temperature prior to exiting their service vehicle and entering the jobsite or interacting with the public. It also includes a plan of action to take in the event an individual has a higher than normal temperature.
Elimination of Handshakes / Unnecessary Contact / Securing Work Area:
We will temporarily be eliminating handshakes with management and or the general public.
We have instructed our techs to minimize any transfer of paperwork, pens, business cards, etc. if at all possible. Note: elimination of signatures by the customer, instead relying on IVR verification, could be a way to effectively eliminate this step altogether. Please advise if this is acceptable for implementation.
We will ensure all work areas are clear of customers and non-essential employees during repairs
We will be placing increasing emphasis on securing each jobsite and preventing entrance by unauthorized individuals.
Where possible we will work overnight to avoid contact with the public should any company request.
We will take steps to sanitize equipment and tools designed for repeated use after each use.
In addition to these extensive efforts we will also be following any other CDC guidelines for a clean and safe workplace.
Remote / Work From Home / Direct Dispatch & Garaging of Vehicles & Equipment:
Our dispatchers, accounting personnel, division managers, and other support staff have begun working remotely from home as much as possible. Our company had already adopted a limited remote work schedule prior to this current pandemic, allowing us to make a seamless transition to the new format.
All our support staff are equipped with company provided computers, video conferencing software, access to our customer service software and records, and any necessary files via the cloud.
Our technicians are being dispatched directly to jobsites with crews keeping their service vehicles and equipment with them offsite and in their sole possession as possible..
Our prior implementation of a hub / zone-based service structure provides us with a compartmentally insulated response capacity not limited to any one zone, city, county, or region. This should minimize any potential risk of short-term service interruptions while helping prevent cross contamination of zones by our workforce in the unlikely event any of us were to contract the virus. Our isolation from one another should also ensure that within the company itself all are not taken off the front lines should one be affected
Increased Capacity / Existing Coverage Area / Situational Awareness: ServeStar continues to make every effort to provide consistent coverage throughout our service area despite the new challenges.
We have deployed all our available resources to facilitate efficient response to our existing customers.
We are attempting to rapidly ramp up our service call response capacity to help customers cover any potential gaps created in the event other providers are unable to remain operational.
We have hired additional dispatch and accounting staff in the last two weeks to handle the increase in volume we predict. We are in the process of recruiting / hiring / & procuring:
Additional pre-trained service technicians and trainees.
Additional service vehicles, equipment, and supplies to facilitate an emergency expansion of our service capacity.
Situational Awareness / Communication: Our goal is to meet as much of the ongoing demand we are experiencing while staying apprised of the situation on the ground to make necessary adjustments as needed:
We are closely monitoring government declarations of travel bans or curfews or other actions which may cause delayed service
We will communicate necessary changes in schedule or direct impact on service of any development at the earliest possible moment.
Areas with travel bans, curfews, or “hot spots” will be handled on a case by case basis in accordance with requirements set forth by authorities, provided a sufficiently safe work environment exists for us to continue effective operations.
First Visit Fix Focus: ServeStar’s management team is working closely with all crews to ensure all efforts are exhausted to complete jobs on the first visit. While this is always the case in a practical sense, we are placing increased emphasis on a FIX IT NOW approach if humanly possible to avoid risk factors to customers resulting from delays in service while awaiting approvals for critically needed work such as clogged drains. With that goal in mind we do ask our customers and partners in service to provide thorough / timely communications and on site approvals if at all possible. This will increase efficiency and save resources, while minimizing exposure, thereby protecting the public and our employees from unnecessary exposure.
Trust, Belief, & Thank You: We want to thank you for the trust you have placed in all of us here at ServeStar. In times such as these we must trust in each other, our fellow men and women. Many of us have worked for years together in a commercial capacity and although our roles and interactions have always been important, there is a keen sense that this has become more than just a job or a living for us all. It has become a fight for survival of those most in need of protection. A battle in which we struggle collectively against an unseen enemy threatening to destroy or forever change our lives, the lives of our children, our parents, our grandparents, and great grandparents... it threatens are very freedoms, economic systems, and perhaps ultimately our way of life. I believe it is critical, as we navigate this storm of chaos descending upon us, that we stand together in unified purpose and solidarity. We must reject fear, panic, selfishness, greed, inaction, and needless bureaucracy and choose instead to do what it takes, to be there for each other, to have faith in our fellow men and women, and to do the right thing regardless of cost. With the help of God we will overcome this … overcome it, learn from it, and recover from it. Let’s get it done…. in a way in which we can all be proud! We thank you for placing YOUR trust in those of us here at ServeStar and for standing by us during this extraordinary time through which we pass.
Sincerely,
Aaron L. Miller
Managing Member / CEO
ServeStar LLC