Restoration Ready: SERVPRO’s Formula for Disaster Response

When disaster strikes, communication is key. Kim Brooks, Director of Communications at SERVPRO, shares how her team turns crisis into calm through their restoration efforts. 🏘️🔧

Featured on: 

• Tomorrow's World Today - S9E1 – Restoration Rangers

Learn more about this topic: 

• 5 Types of Natural Disasters and Their Impacts
• How to Prepare for a Natural Disaster

Transcript

Steven: 0:01

Welcome to the Tomorrow's World Today podcast. We sit down with experts, world changing innovators, creators, and makers to explore how they're taking action to make tomorrow's world a better place for technology, science, innovation, sustainability, the arts, and more. On this episode, host George Davison, who is also the host of the TV series Tomorrow's World Today, sits down with Kim Brooks, the Director of Communications for Servpro Industries. She shares how Servpro focuses on a rapid response to disasters, using a slogan, like it never happened, to emphasize restoring customers' lives while continuously innovating through brainstorming, AI-driven weather modeling, and specialized training facilities.

George: 0:46

Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of Tomorrow's World Today. And today I have a special guest. I'd like you to meet Kim Brooks and she's with the Servpro company. Welcome Kim.

Kim: 0:56

Thank you for having me.

George: 0:57

You're very welcome. I have a lot of good questions for you today. I hope you're ready.

Kim: 1:02

I think I am.

George: 1:03

All right. All right. So let's kind of walk back a little bit into the history of Servpro. Maybe we could start there. Because everything starts with an idea, doesn't it?

Kim: 1:13

Absolutely.

George: 1:14

So somewhere in the past, some If somebody had an idea, can you walk us back and how did

Kim: 1:19

that happen? Sure, absolutely. Servpro was founded by the Isaacson family back in 1967. And Servpro actually started as a painting business, if you can believe it. And they were entrepreneurs at heart and all about helping entrepreneurs succeed. And so looking for ways to expand and grow their business and eventually got into the cleaning business. And from there, we continued to grow and started franchising.

George: 1:45

Franchising. All right. So that's when you start to build something and then you want to scale. Absolutely. Back in, what was that, the 70s?

Kim: 1:53

1967. So we started franchising in 69. 69.

George: 1:56

Yeah, franchising was like the big thing back in the late 60s, early 70s, wasn't it?

Kim: 2:02

Yes, absolutely.

George: 2:03

Yeah, what a great idea. I don't know who came up with the idea of franchising, but it really helped you guys.

Kim: 2:09

It was a great idea, yes, and we continue to do that today. We've now got over 2,300 franchises across the U.S. and Canada.

George: 2:15

Wow.

Kim: 2:16

So we've grown tremendously. I've been with the company right around 14 years, and I think we were around 1,700 franchises when I started. So

George: 2:25

wait, 1,700 when you started. Where are you now? 2,300. 2,300. So if we could group that for our audience, about how many people do you have working there?

Kim: 2:35

So at our HQ office, we've got around 500 people.

George: 2:38

And

Kim: 2:38

then we guesstimate around 20,000 across the country serve pro teammates.

George: 2:43

Isn't that amazing? It is. just an idea all those years ago. And now we have all these people working there.

Kim: 2:50

They're

George: 2:51

employed, they have families they're supporting, et cetera, et cetera.

Kim: 2:55

Absolutely.

George: 2:56

It's a great, great story.

Kim: 2:57

And that's one of the things I love about Servpro. So we're a cleanup and restoration business. So if you have a water damage or a fire damage, we come in and try to help make it like it never even happened. But at our core, it's about helping people. And that's one of the things I love about being a part of this brand is just that we go in and help people on their bad days. And then... On the same note, being a franchisor, we get to help people grow this business. Like you said, it helps serve so many families because you're helping grow their families, too.

George: 3:26

It's so true. I've had my experiences with disasters. I've had house issues, hit by too much water, and that was a big emotional experience for my family when that happened. And right here where we're sitting in this set, in the original filming of the first show of Tomorrow's World Today. That morning, we had somebody on a sprinkler, up by a sprinkler head, and they hit it by accident, and all of this water came dumping down on the set when cameras were just getting ready to run, and I was in a suit,

Kim: 4:04

and

George: 4:04

I was covered in all this blackish water that was sitting up in those pipes for 50 years or whatever long

Kim: 4:11

it was.

George: 4:12

But you know what? We got through it, and everybody kind of rolled up their sleeves, and then we had the restoration services. They were here within hours, and next thing you know, off we were to the races. We were filming later that day, which was shocking.

Kim: 4:27

I believe it. Yeah, I've had a few water damages myself at my house. It's not a fun place to be, but hopefully you will never have that issue again, but should you, you know who to call now.

George: 4:37

That's right. Can I have your cell phone number, please? Yes. All right, so you guys have a very strong brand presence as a company and you said your slogan earlier I heard it slide right out of there. Can you

Kim: 4:53

say it again? Like it never even happened.

George: 4:56

So that's a beautiful slogan and it really you're painting a picture like the story of what it's going to be like you can get your life back. So do you have any recollection on how the idea for that slogan came about?

Kim: 5:09

Oh gosh well it was definitely pre me but I know that there was a brainstorming session with you some of our agency team and our team talking about what do we want this to look like? How do we paint that picture for people? And that's really what it's about is that we want to make your bad day, your water damage, we wanna give you your home back. So how do we do that? How do we make it like it never even happened? And so I'm not sure the exact origin, but I mean, I'm sure it was a light bulb moment and it's been a great, I think it's a great slogan and tagline for what we do.

George: 5:43

Well, when people are on a mission, and they start brainstorming. Maybe we could chat about that a little bit. Our audience loves the field of innovation. So at ServPro, I mean, when you sit down as a team, is that how you do it? How does brainstorming kind of go about in your world?

Kim: 5:59

Yeah, I don't know if there's a day that goes by that there's not some sort of brainstorming going on. You know, I think that ultimately, you know, when you're in a business, no matter what that business looks like, there's always going to be a need for solutions and innovation, you know. And so you've got to get people together and start ideating and talking about, okay, how do we fix this or how do we make this more efficient? And so, I mean, every day, I know I sit with my team and I know it happens across the building. I'm sure it's happening within our franchises too. You know, how do we do this better? How do we serve this customer better? So, I mean, we sit down and brainstorm, I'd say, probably daily.

George: 6:34

Yeah. You know, that's how you stay competitive in this world. It's a very competitive world.

Kim: 6:39

Absolutely.

George: 6:40

If you rest on your laurels too long, you never know.

Kim: 6:43

You can't.

George: 6:45

Right. You just can't. And if you're smart enough, you know you shouldn't, right? That's right. So that field of innovation is really a special field. I think it's pretty misunderstood because people don't know where things come from. You mentioned that the founders were painters. And I thought maybe he had some kind of a connection, like he had an observation that here I am painting, I go into all these disasters after these things happen, and then he made an observation that, wait a minute, this would be better if I went to insurance. I started going after and supporting that insurance play. So as I was studying the history of the company, I thought, yeah, he was pretty innovative. And that requires being observant.

Kim: 7:29

Absolutely.

George: 7:29

So, and seeking a greater situation, right? So I think that's part of brainstorming as well. You know, having that observational sense about you and wanting to make things better.

Kim: 7:44

Yeah, I love that that thought and you know Ted Isaacson is no longer with us the founder of the company but you know we did a great sit down talk with him you know a few years before he passed and he said you know he had big visions for the company but even he couldn't imagine you know where it is today at that time yeah so you know I think he'd be even more amazed now you know at the way it's continued to grow and evolve to better suit the customers needs because you know you talk about involving insurance you know early on we started this you know painting then we move into cleaning and now we're moving into full service so that we can be sort of this one point of contact. So if you have a problem at your home, we can come in and do everything from start to finish and to truly make it like it never even happened. So build back from the last coat of paint on the wall. So back to our roots with the painting.

George: 8:30

Nice. So one call, you solve it all.

Kim: 8:33

That's it. We may have a new slogan. Are we brainstorming right now? We are brainstorming right now. I love this.

George: 8:41

Good stuff. All right. So let's talk a little bit more then if we could What role does digital marketing play in this field of restoration for you guys?

Kim: 8:52

Sure. Digital marketing, I think, is critical these days. For us, it's all about reaching the customer where they are. And we know that, for the most part, it starts right here with their phone in their hand.

George: 9:02

Yes.

Kim: 9:02

So in your time of need, we want to make sure that if you search water damage, like, what do I do right now? We hope that we're the first ones that pop up. So digital marketing is critical in our strategy in terms of making sure that we can reach people and they know how to get a hold of us so that if they need us, we're there right away, right at their fingertips.

George: 9:21

So that's evolved. Absolutely. If it was the 70s, though, I mean, what was the idea back then? Was it just like the old yellow pages? I think it

Kim: 9:29

was the yellow pages, absolutely,

George: 9:31

yes. Oh, my gosh. And there it was, floating in the water.

Kim: 9:36

That's exactly right. I don't know if most people even know what the yellow pages are anymore. It's the Google pages.

George: 9:41

Right, those days are long gone. So... You guys are known for cutting edge technology. You've evolved over the years and I'd like it if you could share with our audience some of your more recent innovations.

Kim: 9:56

I was thinking about this question because there's so many different avenues I guess we could talk about. One of the things that I love to talk about that's a little known and different avenue for us is we do a lot of our own in-house cleaning products. So we've got a blending team. We even have our own chemist on our staff. They like to go in and they help come up with new solutions for what our teams are needing out in the field. They're saying, I may have this issue that I'm dealing with. And so they'll go and start to come up with ideas and try different formulas to see, okay, let me see if I can determine this. And one of the new things that we've got is they just released a brand new line of botanical-based products, which I think is really cool because it's a great alternative option, especially if we've got more sensitive customers like younger people or older clients So I think it's just really neat. I love to go out to their lab and always see what they're working on.

George: 10:50

So I think that's a great approach. I mean, so you're talking with people who are actually in the field. They're doing the work. They're running into these challenges. Correct. And then those people and the observations they're making create the basis for how ideas are formed and challenges are found.

Kim: 11:08

That's exactly right.

George: 11:09

And then you bring that back, and so now you're into solutions. Yes.

Kim: 11:13

That's

George: 11:13

fabulous. So you went from painting. We're all

Kim: 11:17

over the place, right? Right. I love it.

George: 11:19

Yeah, good stuff. All right, how about is ServPro, because this world's so wrapped around AI now, are you guys using AI yet in any

Kim: 11:29

way? We are experimenting with it in some ways. So with our disaster relief and responding to large-scale events, we're using it to sort of help with weather modeling a little bit, also help with determining where to stage our crews and teams so that they can get into areas more quickly and strategically. So where they can be safely out of the way of the storm, but then get there as quick as possible after the storm. We're also looking at how to utilize it to help our teams with training in the field. So to try to make it, I guess, more efficient and easier when they're in the field, if they need to access information. So that's something that's in development now. So we're currently working with it to see. I think it's about efficiencies, trying to find ways to plug it in. I think a lot of people are worried about AI replay placing things. I don't know that we're not there for sure, but it's definitely, I think, a good catalyst to help.

George: 12:22

Well, I mean, if you can use A as a predictive model based on, let's say, where weather and what weather is doing, and then that lets you prepare in advance all your franchisees so they can be more prepared for all the requests coming in from the customers, that's a much better solution than waiting around and not being ready and you haven't scaled properly, right?

Kim: 12:48

That's exactly right. And that's what it's all about is trying to make sure that we can scale appropriately so we can get and help as many people as possible once, you know, it's safe to do so.

George: 12:55

That's smart. Very smart. All right. So what would you say are some of the biggest challenges that you see coming in the future, you know, with this restoration industry and how are you preparing for those?

Kim: 13:10

I think the increasing weather patterns that we're seeing and large-scale disasters will continue. We're seeing more and more, it seems, as each year goes on. So it's about continuing to scale and learning how to do that and learning how to continue to increase our capacity and capabilities. And then I think it's tech advancements and customer expectations and just staying ahead of that and trying to find the best way to communicate with customers so that they feel like they understand the process and just, like I said, the expectation of having that one point of contact so that they feel comfortable the whole way through the process.

George: 13:49

Yeah, that means a lot, because if you're jumping around from one to another to another, that's always a little unnerving.

Kim: 13:58

You want to know that you can call up and say, okay, listen, what's going on with my house? You want to know that one person that you can talk to instead of having to go to ten different people.

George: 14:07

Exactly. Unfortunately, I'm familiar with

Kim: 14:10

that now. So

George: 14:12

do you have any shorter term plans on growth, like in the next five or 10 years that you could share with us?

Kim: 14:20

Gosh, we definitely have strategic growth plans in place to continue growing and to try to continue to bring in state-of-the-art equipment and develop these professional cleaning products to keep us ahead of the curve. So I mean, I think we want to work on, and again, going back to the technology and the AI piece and figuring out how to utilize that to make sure we have best in class communication with our customers because ultimately that just allows us to serve them better and it gives a better end result. So those and then again the single point of contact, that is a big focus for us right now in terms of making us sort of a full service, easy, here you go solution.

George: 14:59

So you've gone through all these evolutionary steps.

Kim: 15:02

It's

George: 15:03

like constant innovation, right? And you know, constant innovation is one, like you can make small incremental innovations. And then every once in a while maybe you find a really big move, like maybe that jump into creating the actual solutions that you're putting on into the environment. So do you have a team of inventors or innovators or maybe an R&D lab at your facilities?

Kim: 15:33

I wouldn't say officially, but we do have absolutely a lot of that going on in a couple different ways. We talked about the products So we've got a lab where they're constantly innovating and looking for new formulas to create these professional cleaning products. But then we have a really robust training program. And within that, we've got two houses. One is actually inside our HQ facility, and then the other is outside. And we use that for training. So the one inside, we smoke once a month. And so that's how we help train people that are incoming, new owners or technicians. So they actually get hands-on experience Yes. And then we also have a house that we flood a couple times a month, same thing. But then we've got also production rooms where they learn how to do things like containment. So if you've got maybe a mold situation that we need to come in and take care of. So there's always some sort of testing and things like that going on. And our equipment team, they are always, you go back to their shop, they've always got equipment running and they're testing it. I always say I want to help with the drop tests. You know, they say, oh, this is supposed to be from a six foot drop, this equipment should survive. I'm like, can you call me when we get to do that? You know, because that sounds like fun. But so there's always something going on as it relates to training and learning how we can better our process.

George: 16:52

That makes sense because you guys, you have a lot of franchisees. So new franchisees, they come into the headquarters. Yes. And that's where all these training facilities are. That way you get the same kind of quality services at scale throughout the USA and Canada. So now your customers know what to expect. It's kind of like the franchise for McDonald's. The fries are the same in Minnesota that they are in Florida.

Kim: 17:21

We want you to get the same service, whether you're in Pennsylvania or Tennessee.

George: 17:26

Yes. So what about intellectual property at Servpro? Is there a portfolio of innovation or trade secrets that are involved?

Kim: 17:36

I think it comes down to we definitely have proprietary training.

George: 17:40

One

Kim: 17:40

of the things that you learn about when you come into Servpro is the science of drying and what does it take to properly remediate, mitigate, and then dry out a structure so that you can begin to make it like it never even happened. So we've got proprietary training. We've also got, back to the products, we've got a couple of branded products now that they've innovated and we've stamped the Servpro brand on. And we hope to continue to do that and grow that process more.

George: 18:08

Sounds like a smart idea. because everybody's trying to make something better out there. So what do you think might be the next big thing in your industry?

Kim: 18:18

You know, the basic mechanics of what we do will never change. It will stay constant in terms of how we do the science of drying and how we approach the process. But I think it goes back to the AI and the communication and how can we better serve our customers. And so is there technology and innovation along the way that's going to make it more efficient, that's going to make them and feel better about the process along the way. Because like I said, the basics will remain the same, but how do we just continue to improve the overall experience?

George: 18:49

Yes. Do you focus ever on, let's say, speed of action throughout the challenge of solving these problems?

Kim: 19:00

Sure. I mean, I think speed is important, you know, not just in terms of reaching a solution, but when you're talking about responding to someone's home, the quicker you get things taken care of, the quicker you are able to prevent POTENTIAL FURTHER ISSUES, SECONDARY DAMAGES AND THINGS LIKE THAT. PLUS, YOU KNOW YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH IT. YOU JUST WANT YOUR LIFE BACK. YOU DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO ENDURE THIS ANY LONGER THAN POSSIBLE. SO SPEED IS ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL.

George: 19:26

I WAS THINKING THAT MIGHT BE IMPORTANT, BECAUSE IN OUR SITUATION, WE HAD SO MUCH WATER. AND THE LONGER IT WAS SITTING, THE BIGGER, THE FURTHER IT WAS GOING UP THAT WALL. IT WAS JUST ABSORBING IT UP THROUGH THAT WALL. SO I WAS THINKING THAT SOMEWHERE ALONG THE LINE, GETTING THERE AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, mediating it, drying it. It's such a vital piece before moisture sits too long.

Kim: 19:52

And it's really one of those things that can happen so quickly. And we always say it's the water you don't see. So it is that water that's seeping up the wall that you don't realize maybe at first that it's happening. And if you don't take care of things quickly, before you know it, you could have secondary issues like mold and you never want that.

George: 20:09

No. So that's a good... I'm glad we're ending on this... cleaning up the mold, making a great situation like it didn't happen. I can't thank you enough for coming in today.

Kim: 20:20

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a lot of fun.

George: 20:23

Well, everybody, that's another edition of Tomorrow's World Today. Thank you.

Steven: 20:28

And find us wherever podcasts are available.