Finding Service Providers You Can Trust

If you work in facilities management (FM), you probably know that finding service providers you can trust is one of the more challenging aspects of the job. Sourcing, vetting, hiring, supervising, and evaluating a wide range of trustworthy service providers to maintain buildings, systems, equipment, and grounds can be time consuming, and costly.

There is a better way, however. With an integrated facilities management (IFM) solution from NEST, you have a reliable service team at your fingertips一at all times一at no additional cost. Read on to see how it works.

What Is FM?

Facilities management covers a wide range of diverse responsibilities and tasks that together ensure facilities, systems, equipment, and external grounds are safe and functional for its users. FM can also protect your brand一if your physical facilities don’t support the customer experience you want to deliver, your reputation and business may suffer.

More specifically, FM can include everything from maintaining building systems such as HVAC and plumbing to daily floor cleaning, copy machine upkeep, garden weeding, and soap dispenser refilling, just to name a few.

Three Main Approaches to FM

When it comes to the day-to-day care of building systems and equipment一often a large component of FM一there are three broad approaches practiced:

Corrective maintenance involves fixing something after it malfunctions. It is a reactive approach and can be costly due to long periods of unscheduled downtime or if the repair is performed after business hours or on an emergency basis.
Preventative maintenance is conducted on a prescribed schedule when assets appear to be working properly. The idea is to avoid bigger repairs later by discovering smaller issues sooner, and replacing parts or making adjustments before things get worse. While preventative maintenance is a more proactive approach than corrective action, it typically involves scheduled downtime. Still, when executed efficiently, preventative maintenance can help reduce costs over the long term.
Predictive maintenance is the most proactive approach of the three. Grounded in machine learning technologies, predictive maintenance tracks your assets and identifies subtle variances in their behaviors. Notifications alert managers that attention may be needed. Similar to preventative maintenance, predictive maintenance enables intervention before a significant problem develops. But unlike preventative maintenance, intervention is only recommended when a deviation from the normal range of behavior occurs. This minimizes downtime, which also contributes to prolonged cost savings.

Most multi-site FM programs involve at least corrective and preventive maintenance procedures and require a range of service providers to execute the work. A quality IFM program such as NEST, however, includes all three types of maintenance approaches and the service providers to do the work.

When FM Falls Short

If FM isn’t done properly, the productivity and safety of facilities users could be at risk. No one wants to lose work time due to a network outage or tumble down a flight of stairs thanks to a loose handrail. Furthermore, no one will be pleased paying a premium for an emergency repair for that handrail if it could have been addressed sooner, perhaps during a regular maintenance inspection.

NEST’s IFM Solution Supplies Service Providers You Can Trust

As with any profession, some service providers are more skilled, thorough, and reliable than others. Having access to quality providers who can take care of the maintenance you need, when you need it, can be a constant struggle, especially for larger FM programs with multiple sites and assets.

At NEST, we do things differently. Our IFM solution includes a comprehensive independent service provider (ISP) network and related operational support to fully address all your service provider needs. For example:

Our network comprises more than 26,000 vendors across the country who are sourced, evaluated, and hired by NEST. No need to take time off to hunt around for that uniquely skilled vendor who knows how to service your new HVAC system一we’ve got you covered!
NEST’s ISPs are fully vetted to ensure they have up-to-date licenses and insurance to protect you from potential liabilities down the road.
NEST manages costs by negotiating service provider fees upfront and at scale. Furthermore, fees are based on pre-established service level agreements (SLAs), ensuring that your standards for service are handily met, if not exceeded.
We also take care of all scheduling for you. Regardless of the task at hand or time of day, all you have to do is open a work order in our mobile application or call our operational support team. We’ll take care of sourcing the right service provider to get the job done.
We provide ongoing scorecarding and verification of our ISPs to ensure the quality of their service delivery remains high, and even improves.