How much are you really doing in terms of quality assurance for your facility management services? From store layouts to the cleanliness of floors, quality assurance plays a big role in the overall customer experience, and that’s especially true for retail stores.
Quality assurance (QA) is one of the most overlooked aspects of facility management (FM), but it is something that you should address with a proactive approach. A good QA process should provide you with updates on facility conditions and the status of contractor services. If you’ve managed multiple facilities, you know what it’s like trying to keep all locations consistent with your brand. You need to make sure contractors are actually performing the work they’ve been hired to do and that in-store teams are keeping up with interim maintenance. This can be challenging, like getting an employee to clean the restroom. But, with the right QA process in place, staying on top of facility management can be easy.
Whether your QA is handled internally or by a third party, here’s what you need to succeed:
A Dedicated Quality Assurance Team
Most companies can contribute the lack of thorough QA to not having the resources to back up the process. The common option is to give QA responsibilities to store managers—tasks like surveying FM services, providing the right supplies, and training for specific jobs. However, managers are often too busy with day-to-day operational tasks to get into the details of QA.
The better option is to have a dedicated person or team, depending on the number of stores and the area you cover. Having dedicated resources to QA makes it easier to check on whether all facilities are up to brand standards and reveals whether or not you are getting the most value out of your FM services. If you don’t have the resources internally, look for a FM service provider that includes QA as a value-add to their services.
Your QA team should be able to provide:
- Compliance and accountability
- Basic field visits and spot checks
- Survey reports and updates on projects
- Proper field training for store teams and service providers
- Proper tools and supplies for getting maintenance done correctly
- 24/7 emergency response
- Brand consistency across all facilities
The NEST Approach to Facilities Maintenance Quality Assurance
Store managers and their teams should be able to stay focused on two things: the customer and the store’s top-line. The last thing they want to worry about is floor care or other janitorial services. To enable our partners to have the QA they need, the NEST QA team is included as part of our total-cost-of-ownership approach.
Our QA reps act as our eyes and ears in the field, working closely with store managers and our ISP providers to create robust quality assurance programs that include inspection reports, visual audits with photos for proof, and service completion verification. Where our partners lack field personnel, our reps can fill the gaps and take on those QA roles and can even communicate with Service Providers in several languages. Our reps are also dedicated to traveling on site where needed, training providers for specific job sites, auditing provided services, and reporting findings back to you and our operations team. Our reps are even empowered to recall services and have them redone at no additional cost. This full quality assurance initiative makes it easy to monitor ongoing projects and keeps your business consistent and on track.
Made up of 11 reps with over 175 years of practical knowledge combined, our team members have experienced both sides of FM services as previous store managers and business owners themselves. Each representative of our QA team travels around 50,000 miles a year to ensure a high level of quality for our clients’ services and projects. In a way, it’s sleep insurance for our partners because our reps are on call 24/7, year-round, something other companies just don’t do. With our QA team, our partners can rest assured knowing that FM services are going smoothly.
What are some of your current QA challenges?
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