So you have selected your service partners for the season, your preseason walks have been completed, your lots staked and now you’re sitting back and waiting for that first snowfall — and hoping that things go well. What should you expect from your service partners when the snow arrives? Let’s walk through a traditional timeline and some of the best practices that should occur.

It is 72 hours from an upcoming snow storm. Your service partners, who are tracking potential events through their partnerships with multiple weather agencies, identify a storm moving into a portion of your portfolio. The process begins.

They start by contacting all of their local service partners. They confirm their service routes for your portfolio, review equipment, material and staffing needs for the potential event, discuss some of the more critical service deliverables within the scope and begin to review the timing of when the storm will hit. At this time, your service partner should be looking for possible issues, from equipment being down to a shortage of material or labor. Issues identified can be addressed now, well out in front of a snow event.

It is now 48 hours from a possible event. Alerts should begin to be pushed out to your sites and all of your stakeholders, both at the corporate level and the regional level. Your service partners can begin to identify those sites getting service as the storm creeps closer and a focused push for those crews to be prepared continues in earnest.

They should reach out to your sites to identify any special needs (early openings, late closings, special events going on at the sites), so that the local crews can be directed accordingly. Another review of equipment, materials and labor for each local crew is conducted. Again, by looking for potential issues, they can be proactively addressed ahead of the impending snow event.

It is now 24 hours from the beginning of the snow event. We know a lot more now. Potential snow totals are being released; and more importantly, the timing of the event is more precise. While the knowledge that it will snow 6 inches is important, the timing of whether the storm will hit at 10 p.m. or 6 a.m. is more critical to a successful storm.

As this data is locked down, final alerts to you and your sites should occur. Final checklists regarding the scope are completed, vendor calls are made and final routes are confirmed again. A lengthy focus on the timing of the storm occurs, not just from service startup but also through the event and after as they manage potential melting and refreezing. Potential conference calls with your own stakeholders and the vendor might occur, especially during the first few events of the year and those events that might have a tremendous impact to your operations.

Unlike how the quiet that occurs prior to a storm like a hurricane or a tornado that hits is described, there is no quiet leading up to a snow storm. It is efficient, but active, as your service partners take their proactive approach to managing what often can be a devastating result to your operations in the field. The 72 hours leading up to an event are absolutely critical to the success of the storm.

The storm arrives. The heavy lifting should have already occurred. Your service partners should now be focusing on managing the individual services, ensuring your facilities are staying open. In our operations center, during a snow event, for every 10 phone calls that occur, nine are outbound. This is the proactive approach that you should see from all of your partners. From communicating with every service crew, to confirming services at your sites to, most importantly, escalating issues they do discover back to you, this proactive approach will deliver a better service solution during a snow event.

Snow removal is not a perfect service — and it never will be. However, by looking for problems and having a solution in place to resolve them when they do occur, will create an environment where your service partners and your snow removal program will have a better chance to succeed.

All of this data, both from inbound and outbound calls, should be stored on your service partners snow tracking platform, allowing them to manage each location in real-time. It will also allow them to analyze post snow event how each individual provider performed, and provide back to you specific metrics on how the snow event went as a whole.

What happens when the event is over? The first 24-72 hours after snow stops falling will see a variety of tasks performed. Sites will continued to be monitored for melting and refreeze. Any storm cleanup, from snow piles being moved or relocated to final touchups, would occur at this time. An audit of each local vendor’s performance should be completed, and any post-event training regarding performance up to and including changing out a service partner, should occur at this time. Final storm updates should be provided back to you, the process of preparing the billing should begin, and likely the tracking of the next snow event will begin to occur. It can be a long snow season sometimes!

As you can see, the process of managing the day-to-day is never ending. However, by having a plan in place, and executing that plan for each and every event, will allow your service partners the greatest chance to deliver a best-in-class snow removal program.