A business cannot generate revenue when it’s closed. It cannot attract customers, investors, partners, influencers, or employees when its unable to operate. When it comes to patient and client care facilities, it’s nearly impossible to make a second first impression, so disruptions in service and treatments can be especially harmful to the brand.  

Power outages may be the fault of an outside force but having a solution to handle this situation is within the means of the business. Whether the outage occurs during a consultation or a procedure, clients may wonder about your abilities and ask themselves this: if you can’t manage your building infrastructure, then are you really the right one to manage their aesthetics and skin care needs? 

Quite simply, when there is a power outage, the impact on your brand and bottom line can be unrecoverable with the combination of financial losses and client confidence concerns. In the United States, power outages happen for a variety of reasons and can lead to catch-22 situations. During summer heatwaves, air conditioning usage spikes, which burdens the grid and can cause an outage. The solution for this can be a utility-mandated rolling brown or blackout to relieve pressure on the grid but that translates to a planned power outage for businesses. Then, there are severe weather events like high winds, heavy rainstorms, tornadoes, and hurricanes that take out power lines and cause area-wide unplanned outages.  

Clement Feng is vice president of product management for Briggs & Stratton Energy Solutions, a global leader in the design and manufacturing of standby generators and energy storage systems. He is an experienced executive with expertise in residential and commercial backup power, clean energy, and home improvement products, helping educate homeowners and business owners, including patient and client care facilities, to achieve energy independence and improve resilience in managing power outages. Feng holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University and Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He can be reached on LinkedIn.