eKourier July 2017

FEATURES

All hands on Deck

and ownership taking on the responsi- bility of contacting the seven customers who were directly affected by the fire. Karen handled what is an incredibly emotional experience for the customer with dignity, respect and a deep appreci- ation for the customer’s loss. I cannot speak highly enough about Karen and the rest of the Team for that matter.

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It’s wonderful to watch our Team step up, putting their families and personal time aside to assist the customers...

( L to R) Akash Banerjee (Assist Mgr Camperdown), Michael Macheledt (Dev & Const Mgr), Tony Vuong (NSW Ops Mgr) Katerina Lousi (Assist Mgr Camperdown), Carolyn Coates (NSW Ops Mgr), Darren Marshall (General Mgr)

‘ Everybody played their part, helping with the cleanup, contacting customers, showing customers to their units and dealing with the emotions as customers opened their units, for some their whole lives are stored in that unit. By Monday all customers had been contacted, and their storage units inspected. A fantastic effort by everyone under the circumstances! It’s important to recognise the additional help and support from WRS, providing boxes quickly on the day. Michael Fotiadis our Electrician and Allan Huriwai and his Team from Restoration Projects, who were all quick to respond and help on the day and the days following. Total Construction was also on site working on the centre expansion at the time, they also dropped everything to assist and help customers, and the return of business Operations. The Customer Care Centre was also running on Sunday to help with the volume of calls from concerned customers. The cause of the fire is being investi- gated as part of standard procedure for insurance purposes. Regardless of the cause which is yet to be determined everyone was focused on helping mitigate the damage to our custom- er’s goods and returning business operations back to normal.

O n Saturday 27th May at approximately 8.50am a Fire Alarm sounded from the panel at our Camper- down facility. Fire Services responded and were on site ready to act within minutes. Unbeknown to the Team and customers a fire had started on level “two let’s say” in the far south-west back corner of the building. The fire had taken hold producing huge amounts of smoke in a confined area, and the fire once out continued to reignite when disturbed hampering efforts to extinguish the fire. Electricity was isolated and turned off while fire hoses were required to extinguish the fire completely. Access was not allowed as the thick smoke continued to linger throughout the building and no lighting made the area unsafe. It took five fire units to control and extinguish the fire and make the building safe to access. Large fans were positioned around the area to help disperse the smoke and make the area safe. At approxi- mately 3.30pm the power was returned “not to the fire affected area”, and the building was handed back to us by Fire Services.

In that time, members of the Operations Team were contacted along with Construction and the Centre Manager, all responding by attending site and commencing disaster recovery as quickly as possible. It’s wonderful to watch our Team step up putting their families and personal time aside to assist the customers, fellow Team Members and the business through what is a very emotional and difficult circumstance. Seven storage units were directly affected by the fire, and approximately 130 units were identified as having some kind of damage either by smoke or water from Fire Services. Our experience tells us that notifying the customers at the earliest opportunity is better received by customers than waiting. With power restored and the area open for inspection we were able to assess the extent of the damage and the affected units. An email communication went out to approximately five hundred plus customers alerting them to the fire and asking the customers to attend site to inspect their goods as a precaution, 130 customers who we believed had been impacted directly were called personally by the Team. Karen Bell, the Manager of the Camper- down facility, showed tremendous courage

Darren Marshall General Manager

7 Kennards Kourier July 2017