SBA's Disaster Assistance Customer Service Center is Ready to Help

The SBA helps businesses, homeowners and renters with loans after disasters such as floods, tornadoes and hurricanes.  To help answer the many questions that these folks have about federal assistance, we have a toll-free call center based in Buffalo with about 80 staff who stand ready to help.  

They’re trained to answer questions about things like SBA disaster loans, payment options, and other federal assistance options.

This month, I’m proud to say that this Disaster Assistance Customer Service Center is featured in this great article in Contact Center Pipeline, a private publication that highlights some of the best centers in the country across a wide range of industries and sectors.

One of the reasons they are featured is because, as you can imagine, sometimes a major disaster will demand that we scale up our response efforts very quickly.  This involves bringing on board some part-time employees – sometimes several hundred more – in order to handle increased call volume at critical times.  As a result, this team can handle thousands of calls a day at critical times.

Most importantly, they’ve maintained a 98% customer satisfaction rate, giving America’s taxpayers great service at a time when they need it most.

If you want more information about SBA Disaster Assistance and current declarations, go here.   Get disaster preparedness tips here.

 Or, simply call the folks I’ve been talking about themselves at 1-800-659-2955.

About the Author

James Rivera was named Associate Administrator for SBA’s Office of Disaster Assistance in November 2009 after serving for several months as Acting Associate Administrator. In a typical year, his office approves about 20,000 loans totaling about $1 billion. This is the SBA’s sole direct lending program.