Customer
Metropolitan Market, a specialty grocery chain headquartered in Seattle, operates seven stores in the Pacific Northwest. Since its founding in 1971, the company has focused on offering customers a selection of highly curated foods and goods including the “ripest fruits, the rarest cheeses, and the freshest seafood and dairy products.”
Its small facilities management team and network of outside contractors are responsible for ensuring that the in-store experience for customers matches the high quality of the foods and goods. The company’s commitment is that customers enjoy a “comfortable, convenient, inspiring environment” at all times, at all locations.
Challenges
Previous to deploying ServiceChannel, Metropolitan Market outsourced FM operations to a third party company who managed the contractors and in-house technicians at each store. The company hired a senior FM expert in 2016 who conducted an operations assessment, which revealed:
- Lack of a proper
- or status reports
“We are getting a lot more things done, and doing them more quickly since deploying ServiceChannel. Most importantly, we are seeing the condition of our stores improve as there are fewer unresolved or unreported issues.”
Goals
Based on the assessment, Metropolitan Market decided to implement an FM technology solution that would give the company better visibility into its operations and a way to hold contractors more accountable to their service level agreements. The evaluation criteria included finding a solution that would let it:
Solution
Metropolitan Market considered a number of service automation and computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) in its thorough evaluation process, which included the option of building a custom system. Ultimately, the decision makers selected ServiceChannel Service Automation due to a number of factors such as the platform’s user interface, enterprise mobility functions and the ability to integrate with other systems through an open application platform interface (API). Key ServiceChannel functionality deployed includes:
Benefits
Metropolitan Market reports that it has achieved the operational visibility and the vendor accountability that served as the primary motivation for transitioning to service automation. Specific benefits include:
Results
The grocery chain has reported significant cost savings relative to its prior arrangement with its outsourced facilities company. In terms of quantifiable benefits since the ServiceChannel deployment, Metropolitan Market reports:
