Having a field day

RP Adam specialises in the residential care, hospitality and leisure markets where regular quality field service is demanded. Its Customer Service Representative (CSR) team act as technical consultants to trouble shoot, to check equipment is working correctly, to check that the correct stocks are on site, and to ensure that chemical training of staff is offered on every visit. Everything is accurately logged to confirm to clients the level of service provided.  

Hugh Hunter, director of UK Sales, says: "Some customers don’t need this kind of level of support, but the ones that do absolutely rely on it. The busy restaurant and hotel chains and the 24/7 care home market demand this type of service.”

 

Minimising waste 

In terms of account management, the company has identified two areas within a customer’s premises where regular visual checks offer protection to both the customer and the company:

• Monitoring chemical stock levels – ensuring customers are not tying up cash with unnecessarily high levels of stock. 
• Monitoring the location, state and operational efficiency of RP Adam owned dosing equipment.

Where inventory control is a key driver for multi-site customers, the company utilises Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology which is an intelligent electronic tagging system. As well as tagging all electronic and manual chemical dosing equipment, RP Adam also places specially encoded tags within store cupboards. On visits, CSRs use their mobile phones to scan the encoded sticker and report on any material anomalies. 

For example, overstocking at a site can be recorded, photographed and emailed to an appropriate person in real time, and immediate steps taken to prevent further orders being placed until stocks have reverted to normal levels. 

 

'Real time' information 

The company has also developed and launched a 'real time' field service reporting system, enabling bespoke site visit reports, photographs, staff training records and certificates and engineering requests to be sent to and from clients’ premises instantly via the 'RP Adam App'.

Using mobile tablet technology, each CSR has access to the company 'Cyber Service Office', giving them all the tools they require to complete various visit reports and action customer queries instantly. Clients are just one click away from receiving a brochure, a product guidance sheet, a wall chart or an MSDS sheet.  

CSRs are also provided with client account 'Rules of Engagement', so that contract promises are adhered to and monitored closely, and the company clearly sees the long term benefit of retaining client contracts rather than being motivated by short term 'up selling'.

Sales & marketing director Max Adam says: "Our objective every single day is to be seen by our customers as the outstanding provider of service in the cleaning industry – it is in our DNA, and the use of this technology allows us to not only plan our service workload far better, but also to ensure our clients are not wasting money by holding excessive stocks." 

The use of the latest digital technology allows the field and Head Office teams to schedule and log service calls to sites throughout the UK and provide client management reports with real time information showing work in progress. Essentially this provides multisite clients with service level reports, confirming quantitative and qualitative data, and summarising all daily and monthly field call activity. This ensures that all service promises are met, on time and in full, every day.

Lee-Anne Gillie, director of UK operations, says: "We have been working on this for nearly two years so I am delighted we are now fully up and running with an excellent client management tool. By using off the shelf hardware, and investing in state of the art software, tailored to our exact requirements via our App, I believe we can offer unparalleled field customer service."