It’s no secret that supply chain issues and labor shortages have caused difficulties for multiple industries around the country and beyond.

Important components like semiconductors, circuit boards, and other electronics that manufacturers and vendors need to service HVAC, lighting, signage, and other systems are coming up short — causing service disruptions and leading to prolonged lead times for replacements. On the labor side, the sheer number of people quitting their jobs each month has led to significant service delays, leaving customers in a tight spot when it comes to facility management and maintenance.

Ensuring you’re supported with your facility management needs is essential because they significantly contribute to your brand and its perception in the market. The last thing your locations need is inoperable heating and cooling systems creating uncomfortable interiors, flickering signage pushing customers away, poor illumination that causes safety concerns, or malfunctioning refrigeration units that lead to spoiled products. Even one occurrence of these affects customers’ experiences with you — and redirects their attention toward your competitors.

With the pivotal holiday season and planning strong facility maintenance partnerships for the new year, now is the time to consider whether you’re partnered with the right organization for your asset maintenance needs. Whether you already have a partner in place, are considering alternative options, or need a partner to support a growing number of locations, here are a few essentials as you navigate facility management planning for the year ahead.

5 Areas of Focus for Your Facility Management Planning

Capabilities

Each facility in your footprint consists of a number of assets that need to be maintained to ensure they’re in good working order — and that you avoid the embarrassing, costly mishaps described above. These include HVAC systems, interior and exterior lighting, electrical systems, fire & life safety equipment, signage, and plumbing. Working with a single partner that’s experienced in maintaining all of these systems streamlines facility management planning by eliminating the need to quote, work and communicate with multiple separate service providers. Your partner will combine all of these assets into a single program with one cost, proactively maintain them on preset cycles, and be available at a moment’s notice for any reactive maintenance needs.

The CLS Difference: For more than 50 years, our expert team has supported businesses in the financial services, medical & fitness, restaurant, retail, and commercial industries with elite asset management services. In every relationship, we build a custom preventive maintenance program with clear, upfront pricing that covers all of your essential assets. Learn more about our asset maintenance capabilities.

Reach

Depending on your organization, you might have anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred locations — each with assets that need to be maintained. While problems can arise at any of these locations, proactively servicing them on a preventive maintenance schedule ensures consistent reliability and uptime — helping you to avoid unexpected problems and excess costs. As you navigate facility management planning, consider whether your existing partner has the necessary team size or network to support all of your locations. Just as important: does that partner have the ability to scale its service alongside your growth strategy? Understanding this early on ensures that no location is left on its own for asset maintenance, that assets are always performing properly, and that associated costs such as utilities are kept in check.

The CLS Difference: We have built a highly vetted and proven network of vendors, contractors, and suppliers whose average tenure with our organization is 12.5 years. Each vendor is evaluated by our internal vendor relations team, which assesses their pricing, coverage, insurance, and performance to ensure that they will execute your preventive maintenance program with nothing less than excellence. Learn more about our national network.

Technology

A key part of your facility management planning should be how you expect to understand, analyze, and report on your preventive maintenance program. At any time, you should be able to access information on your assets as well as work orders, service call history, quotes, invoices, warranty management, and other important documentation. All of this information should be accessible to you 24/7/365. Additionally, these technologies must provide greater value apart from simply giving you access to information. It should allow you to understand where your program stands at any given time, enabling you to make proactive decisions about where your maintenance dollars are being spent.

The CLS Difference: As part of your preventive maintenance program, we provide a client asset management portal that gives you access to everything you need to understand your program at a high level and also to drill down into specific work orders, project statuses, and more. You can prioritize maintenance at specific locations whenever situations arise or based on asset data. Everything you need is made available to you to ensure your program is a success at all times. Learn more about our asset management portal.

Availability

While every partner should be available to you for unexpected situations, many companies use an answering service to take after-hours or emergency calls. The challenge here is that the people answering these calls don’t understand your business, what the challenge means, or what your program includes. This can cause delays and confusion as the call service takes a message or tries to connect with someone at your partner company. When working through your facility management planning, consider if this is really the best approach for your locations. The longer your assets remain down, the more revenue each location loses, and the more customer trust is lost.

The CLS Difference: When you partner with us for your asset maintenance needs, the people you talk to for an emergency or after-hours situation are the same people you’d speak with during standard business hours. Our in-house service team is available to you seven days per week, 365 days per year — including weekends and after-hours needs. If you have an emergency, you’ll be connected with your account manager, who will coordinate a solution promptly. Additionally, we will work with you upfront to develop an emergency response process as part of your overall program so both parties understand what is expected and what happens when a situation arises. Learn more about our emergency services.

Entrust Your Maintenance Strategy to the Experts

Whether you’ve experienced delays or issues with your current preventive maintenance partner or you’re looking to support a growing footprint, CLS Facility Services is the asset maintenance provider you need for the road ahead. We partner with every client to not only execute their program but also to participate in facility management planning from the very beginning. Once your custom program is defined, we assign a full team to your account — including a lead account manager, preventive maintenance account manager, business account manager, and more. These highly experienced professionals have an average tenure with our company of 14 years.

Over coverage across the U.S., and Canada and our extensive national network of proven vendors ensure that wherever your facilities are located, our team will be there to support them proactively — identifying issues before they become costly problems and addressing them with integrity, transparency, and clear pricing while keeping you informed of work status at all times.

If it’s time to make a change, experience the CLS difference today. Connect with us to discuss your goals and to put your business in a stronger position in 2022.