The hail hits overnight. By 7 a.m. your inbox has a fresh storm list, three seasonal setters are asking which rows are theirs, a closer wants to know how many inspections he has tomorrow, and your best rep is already dialing a zip code someone else worked yesterday. Storm days reward speed, but speed without a plan just burns the list faster. This roofing storm blitz call ops checklist is the day-of version: what to set up before the first dial, how to run the floor while the surge is hot, and when to stop.
It is written for roofing and exterior teams (siding, gutters, windows) that book inspections by phone after weather events, but the same checklist works for any home-services floor running a surge. It is an operations guide, not legal advice. Calling rules vary by country, state, and province, so confirm what applies in your market.
Before the first dial (30 minutes, one owner)
The biggest storm-day mistakes happen before anyone picks up the phone. Give one person, usually the floor manager, these 30 minutes and protect them.
1. Tag the campaign. Every row from this event gets one campaign tag, such as the storm date plus area. That tag is how you will see books, shows, and closes for this storm later, and how you keep storm results from polluting normal coaching numbers.
2. Merge and dedupe. Storm lists arrive from everywhere: purchased data, canvass sheets, inbound web forms, referral texts. Merge them into one list and remove duplicate phone numbers and addresses before anyone starts. Two setters calling the same homeowner within an hour is the fastest way to look like a boiler room.
3. Scrub suppression first. Run the merged list against your internal do-not-call records and any registries that apply to you. If a homeowner asked you to stop calling last spring, a hailstorm does not change that. The process is covered in how to handle do-not-call requests without killing volume.
4. Split the list by rule, not by grab. Decide how rows are assigned before the floor opens: by zip, by alternating rows, or by a mix of fresh and aged data per seat. Write the rule down. Fair splits keep booking numbers comparable and stop the "she got all the good streets" argument at noon. The details are in how to split lists fairly across setters.
5. Confirm closer capacity. Know how many inspection slots exist for tomorrow and the day after, by closer and by area. Setters who book past capacity create no-shows and angry homeowners. Put the number on the board.
6. Give seasonal setters their own logins. If you brought in extra help for the surge, each person gets their own seat. Shared logins wreck attribution exactly when spiffs and payouts matter most.
Warm rows before cold volume
On storm day the temptation is to blast the new list immediately. Resist it for the first 20 to 30 minutes.
Clear these first, in order:
- Inbound storm inquiries from your site, phone, or texts. These people raised their hand. Call them back within minutes, not hours.
- Existing callbacks due today, especially old quotes in the affected area. A homeowner who got a quote in the spring and now has hail damage is the warmest lead you have.
- Past customers in the storm zone. A quick "we're checking on customers after last night's storm" call books inspections and referrals.
Then open the cold list. This ordering is the same idea as a morning callback queue, just with higher stakes.
Running the floor during the surge
Once dialing starts, the manager's job switches from setup to keeping the log clean.
Use a short outcome set. Booked inspection, callback (with date and time), no answer, not interested, wrong number, do not call. Anything more complicated slows reps down. Reps should log the outcome before the next dial, not at lunch. The full reasoning is in what to log after every cold call.
Every callback gets an owner and a time. "Call me after my adjuster comes" is a real callback, not a note. Log the date, assign it to the setter who took the call, and it shows up in their queue on the right day. Storm leads go cold fastest in the 48 hours after the first conversation.
Watch the board at fixed checkpoints. Mid-morning, after lunch, and late afternoon, look at three numbers per seat: dials, conversations, and booked inspections. You are not looking for a leaderboard winner. You are looking for problems: a setter with lots of dials and zero conversations may have a bad slice of the list, and a setter with lots of conversations and zero books may need a quick script adjustment.
Recount capacity at each checkpoint. If tomorrow's inspection slots are almost full, tell setters to start booking further out or to switch to the next area. Do not let the floor book 40 inspections into 25 slots.
Confirmations are part of the blitz
A booked inspection is not a sale, and on storm days it is barely a commitment. Homeowners are getting calls from five other roofers and their insurance company.
Build confirmations into the plan:
- Same-day confirmation for anything booked for tomorrow, by call or text, ideally from the setter who booked it.
- Morning-of reminder with the closer's name and arrival window.
- No-show recovery the same afternoon: one call, one text, and a new time offered.
The appointment confirmation call system covers the full queue. On a storm day, the main thing is that confirmations are on someone's list, not left to the closer.
Stop rules
Storm surges end, and teams that do not notice keep pounding a dead list until reps burn out and homeowners get annoyed. Decide your stop rules before the blitz starts.
| Signal | What it usually means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Conversation rate drops by half from day one | List is saturated or competitors have called everyone | Pause cold dials on that area; keep working callbacks |
| Do-not-call requests spike in one zip | Over-calling or poor timing | Stop dialing that zip for the day and review attempt caps |
| Inspection slots booked out a week or more | Closers are the bottleneck | Shift setters to confirmations and callbacks |
| Most rows have hit your attempt cap | List is worked | Retire cold rows; keep dated follow-ups |
Attempt caps matter here. Three to five attempts on a cold storm row, spread across different times of day, is a common range; more than that mostly creates irritation. Pick a number, write it down, and enforce it in your tracker rather than relying on memory. The cadence side is in cold calling cadence for home services.
If the surge runs longer than a few days, move from this checklist to a longer plan like how to run a two-week dial blitz, and use the storm lead follow-up system for the leads that need weeks of follow-up while insurance claims move.
End-of-day review (10 minutes)
Before the floor goes home:
- Every booked inspection is assigned to a closer, with an address and a time.
- Every callback has a date and owner. No "call back sometime" rows.
- Tomorrow's capacity is updated so the morning starts with a real number.
- Booked-by is recorded on every appointment so spiffs are clean when the closes come in.
- One note for tomorrow's standup: what worked, which area is drying up, and who needs help.
The one-page checklist
Before dialing: campaign tag, merge and dedupe, suppression scrub, written split rule, closer capacity, individual logins.
First 30 minutes: inbound inquiries, due callbacks and old quotes in the zone, past customers.
During: short outcomes logged before the next dial, owned and dated callbacks, board checks at three fixed times, capacity recounts.
Confirmations: same-day confirm, morning-of reminder, same-afternoon no-show recovery.
Stop rules: falling conversation rate, DNC spikes, closer bottleneck, attempt caps reached.
End of day: assigned inspections, dated callbacks, updated capacity, booked-by recorded, one standup note.
Where a call tracker helps
You can run a small storm day on a spreadsheet. The free call log template has columns for outcome, callback date, and owner, and it is a fine place to start.
It gets hard when four setters, two closers, and a seasonal hire are working the same surge. That is where Dialed Sales fits: individual logins for every seat, outcomes logged in a tap between dials, dated callbacks that land in the right rep's queue, and a live board so the manager can see dials, conversations, and books without asking around. If you already run roofing outbound on Dialed, storm days are just a new campaign tag.
The short version
- Spend 30 minutes on setup: tag, dedupe, scrub, split, and count capacity.
- Clear warm rows (inbound, old quotes, past customers) before cold volume.
- Log short outcomes before the next dial, and give every callback an owner and a time.
- Treat confirmations as part of the blitz, not the closer's problem.
- Set stop rules in advance and retire worked rows instead of over-calling.
If you want your next storm surge on one shared board with clean attribution, [start a free 2-week trial of Dialed Sales](https://dialedsales.com/auth?mode=signup) before the next weather event.