“THE PERFECT STORM”

RainWise Inc. – Service Department

Submitted by: RainWise Service Manager

November 15, 2017

This past summer and fall has been what we could call “The Perfect Storm” of events that caused a severe backlog of work. Summer and fall is typically always a busy time for our company and we were right in the middle of all that. Then we experienced unplanned immediate staff changes here at RainWise Inc., which resulted in us having to reassign other positions to cover the loss.

After trying to keep up with the business of the season and catching our breath from the changes, the United States then had severe weather-related situations around the country (i.e., hurricane in Texas, hurricane Irma in Florida and surrounding areas, as well as many forest fires on the west coast.) As recent as two weeks ago here in Maine, our Governor declared a state of emergency because of hurricane gusts that came through doing substantial damage and causing extended damage around our state with trees down, power outages, road closures, etc. etc. This all combined created a massive increase of business to all departments here at RainWise Inc., mostly starting in the service department.

Even though we had to do some internal shifting around at our office, some of the remaining people had scheduled vacations that had been on the calendar for months, and so we honored their requested time off, which would not have typically been a problem if all the above-mentioned things had not taken place. So key people were out for chunks of time that made the backlog worse. In addition to scheduled vacations some of those same key people experienced family medical emergencies this past summer and fall.

At this point we were all in a bit of disbelief at all the situations that caused us to get so backlogged. Our current acting Service Manager, Ralph maintains a “under promise, over deliver” mentality when dealing with customers so out of necessity he starting to quote lead times on repairs as high as 8 to 10 weeks. Knowing that it most likely would be a bit less than that, he wanted to make sure the information we were giving to customers was accurate, as to not have unrealistic expectations.

During this time, it certainly felt like we were fighting a losing battle and we were fully aware of customer’s needs. All the staff of RainWise rolled up their sleeves and dug in one day at a time, and did everything within our resources to get caught back up and see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Today, November 15, 2017 I am happy to report that we are back on par. We are at the status that we were at before any of the above-mentioned things occurred. With winter arriving soon and “the season” winding down we feel as though business should resume as normal from here on out. We certainly appreciate all our customer’s patience and understanding during this time, and we sincerely apologize that we may not have been able to assist you in a timelier manner as we always have in the past. We hope that this “perfect storm” scenario does not happen again, but we believe if it does, we will be much better prepared.

As always, if you have any questions feel free to contact our Service Department directly at (207) 801-4039 – We are typically here Monday thru Friday 8am to 4pm. **Just as a courtesy, we would like you to know our department will be closed Thanksgiving week November 21st to November 24th. RainWise Offices are open Monday – Wednesday that week.