How using a digital tool in retail maintenance management can improve operational efficiency

Professional tool for retail maintenance management

With the digital push today, one can only consider what kind of tool to adopt and further develop. There are a variety of ready software solutions available on the market. You can adjust some of the features to your particular business specifics. Or, if you like, you can have your own software designed and implemented. Regardless of which of the above you do, the right tool will hugely improve the ways your store maintenance management is done.

Professional retail maintenance companies usually invest in either a bespoke or best off the shelf industry program to be more efficient in their service: bringing customer service to a higher level with concrete benefits for their clients.

Data on retail maintenance status of all your facilities in one place

If you rely on external maintenance services, collecting data in a comprehensive, systematic and user-friendly way is a critical part of an efficient communication platform between a retailer and maintenance supplier. The data regarding all the preventive, reactive  and emergency visits done to each and every single store are entered in the system. These then refer to a full range of all the electrical, HVAC, hydraulic and small construction jobs done in all the facilities across the customer’s markets of operation.

With all the data in the system, a customer can see the status of each store: when the next planned visit is due, the history of all the visits and interventions, attached photos and technical documentation and costs of each visit.

Analytics & reporting in retail maintenance management based on good quality data

Based on reliable data in the maintenance management software, you should have access to various reports generated from the system based on in-built, selected criteria. As a result of this functionality, retailers should receive some useful big picture data as well as detailed information on some selected item or matter. For example, some most common repairs or equipment failures can be quickly identified and a solution can be worked out to decrease the number of repairs and, therefore, costs. Or, some cost categories could be analysed and verified with a view to find better solutions to fix the problems in a most cost-effective manner.

How we manage store maintenance services for our clients at CAPS Group

At CAPS, we finally settled on implementing Tasker, a program dedicated  especially for facility management industry. The program is an intuitive, flexible and effective tool for managing tasks, processes and staff. We added some personalised features to the system core to adjust it functionality to our business specifics and customers’ expectations.

Our customers are introduced to and have at their disposal a personalized dashboard comprising of 4 modules: Quote management, Calendar, Live store map, Protocols & settlements. Different user groups can be defined depending on the need to see  different kinds of user information. The amount of data should not overwhelm, but should be easy to deal with to serve its purpose and be a reliable foundation for decision making.

Example of map view of a customer store network