The 3 C’s of a Meticulous Facilities Maintenance Program for Financial Institutions
Contributed by Sheryl Perlstein, National Sales Executive
Financial institutions often choose to outsource their facilities maintenance services to professionals for a variety of reasons including convenience, quality standards, and cost efficiency, among others. Based on the sensitive nature of their business and its high level of commitment to customer service, financial institutions not only expect their facilities maintenance partner to understand how important cleanliness and upkeep is for their business but also seek to get high quality standards and continuous improvement month-on-month. As a result, selecting the right facilities maintenance partner is crucial for financial institutions. Making the right decision is beneficial in both, short and long term but getting it wrong is not only costly but also causes operational disruption.
With the growing demand for professional facilities maintenance services as well as the competition in the industry, many companies fall short of their promise. As a customer, financial institutions on the other hand, must evaluate the service providers on the basis of the key 3 C’s that define their service delivery and quality standards:
Consistent Cleaning Performance
Commitment to Safety
Communication
While the 3 C’s serve as comprehensive criteria for assessing the suitability of a potential facilities maintenance service provider, they also illustrate how well they understand the importance, value, and impact of their service on the customer’s business.
Consistent Cleaning Performance – In order to evaluate a service provider’s level of commitment to delivering consistent results, it is important to understand how detail-oriented their recruitment and training programs are. At the same time, the use of innovation and technology are also important factors to gauge how committed there are to produce superior results on a regular basis.
Commitment to Safety – The decision to outsource the cleaning and maintenance functions for financial institutions is based on their expectation to receive high quality services that are challenging, costly, and even risky to achieve through a self-operating model. Ensuring safety for the on-ground team is critical to the success of a facilities maintenance program. Explicit safety measures, reliable tools and equipment, and comprehensive safety training by a dedicated safety team are important elements of the overall safety policy.
Communication – Communication is a two-way process, but it is often missed out in the preliminary transition phase by many service providers. Communication is equally essential prior to start-of-service as well as throughout the contract period. Additionally, Service providers that place a high priority on good customer interaction also encourage their clients to conduct self-evaluations and share the results with constructive feedback. In the long run, a positive relation can be built with a service provider that facilitates frequent communication with a dedicated point-of-contact, and trains on-ground teams on communicating as clear speakers and active listeners.
Diversified Maintenance assigns Client Relations Executives to each customer to ensure their custom requirements are effectively fulfilled with consistent results. Simultaneously, the dedicated Environmental, Health and Safety team designs and implements in-depth safety training programs to improve internal processes and ensure a safe, healthy and incident-free work environment at all sites. Proactive communication strategies also promote feedback sharing and effective communications between management, employees, and customers. To learn more about a meticulously designed facilities maintenance program tailored around the unique and stringent requirements of financial institutions, send me a note at: Sheryl Perlstein sperlstein@diversifiedm.com.
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