Roofing calls after a storm: what to do with all of them

The first hour after the hail stops

The hail quits around 6:40 on a Thursday evening. By seven, people are in their yards looking up, and by ten past your phone has rung more times than it did all last week. You're one roofer, or a crew of five, and half of you are already out tarping.

You can't answer them all yourself, and the sensible way through a storm isn't to try. It's to make sure each call you can't take is picked up by something that gets the address, what the caller can see, whether water is coming in and how to reach them, then puts them on a list you can sort. That's what an answering service for roofers is for. We won't promise that every one of forty calls in an hour lands, nobody honestly can. But a call that reaches our line gets a conversation and a written note, not a full mailbox.

What each caller gets that night

Someone who has just watched golf-ball hail hit their roof wants three things. To be heard, to know they're on a list, and to know what happens next. They don't need a sales pitch.

The line answers as your company and asks the things below. Then it says what you've told it to say, for instance that you're inspecting storm damage in order, leaks first, and that someone will call with a day. It doesn't hand out arrival times it can't know.

• Name, number and address, with the cross street if it's a new subdivision.
• Is water coming in right now? Where, and how much.
• What they can see from the ground. Missing shingles, dented vents and gutters, a branch on the roof, granules washed out of the downspouts.
• The roof. Shingle, metal or tile, one story or two, roughly how old.
• Owner or tenant, and the best times to reach them.

Insurance questions get written down, not answered

It's the question on every storm call. Should I file a claim? Will they pay for the whole roof? What about my deductible? Do I call you first, or them?

Our line doesn't answer any of that. It never gives insurance-claim advice. It won't say whether to file, what's likely to be covered, or what anything will cost the homeowner out of pocket. What it does is take down facts: whether they've already opened a claim, the insurer's name, the claim number if they have one, and whether an adjuster visit has a date. If they ask what they should do, it says you'll talk it through when you call. There's more about what the line will and won't do on our trust page.

Frankly that's the right split even with a person answering. What a contractor may say about a claim varies from state to state. (That's general information, not legal advice. Check the rules where you work.)

The next morning, everyone wants a day

By morning the calls change. Fewer people in shock, more people wanting a date. This is where storm work gets its bad name, because it's tempting to tell everybody "tomorrow".

Give the line your real rule. Something like: active leaks get a call back today, everyone else gets an inspection within the week, mornings or afternoons, and you'll confirm the day by phone. It offers those windows and takes a preference. It doesn't book a slot it can't see. You or your office confirm in whatever you already use, or your own assistant books it if it has access to your calendar.

When the schedule slips, because it rained again or the last roof took longer than it should have, the line can make those calls too. Tell it who to call and what the new window is. It reports back in writing on who it reached.

Callers from outside your area

Storms don't respect a service area. You'll get calls from two counties over, from people who found you because everyone nearer was busy.

Tell the line where you work and what to do past the edge. A polite no is fine. Taking the address anyway and marking it as outside the area is fine too, if you'd travel for a full replacement. What matters is that the caller gets a straight answer in the first minute and doesn't sit on a list nobody will ever call.

A local number helps here, by the way. After a big storm, homeowners get their doors knocked by crews from out of state, and plenty of them have learned to look at the area code. Your line's number is in yours. The home services page has sample instructions with a space for your towns.

What you read that evening

Friday, 8pm, kitchen table. This is when storm triage really happens.

Each call is a written summary in your history, with the outcome at the top. You go through and sort. Water coming in now: if your rules said so, those callers were told last night that you'd ring them back, and any you didn't reach get the 7am calls. Visible damage and no leak: the inspection list, grouped by neighborhood so you aren't zigzagging across town. Claim already open, adjuster date set: up the list, because you'd like to have seen the roof before the adjuster does. Outside the area: decide once, for all of them.

The history exports as a CSV file, which opens in any spreadsheet. That's handy the week you've got sixty addresses and need to plan routes. If you forward only missed calls, each note is marked as missed on your mobile, and after-hours answering explains how that side is set up.

Then you pick the first three people to call at seven, and go to bed.

Common questions

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