Build and maintain a rock-solid network of proven best providers
Uphold your brand experience and ensure business continuity with the right mix of the highest quality, most cost-effective service providers in the market.
Lisa Rosato
Director, Relationship Marketing
Evaluate the state of your network — and identify where you can improve.
Service providers are critical to the delivery of your facilities mission. In fact, over 80% of facilities budgets go to the direct payment of service providers. And for good reason. While marketing and operations build your company’s image, your facilities bring it to life.
As an extension of your team on the front lines, your service providers do the critical work to ensure your locations perform around the clock. They play a critical role in delivering the elevated brick and mortar experience your customers and team members now expect.
Having the right providers ready to resolve issues quickly prevents unnecessary downtime that can cost your company revenue and erode customer loyalty.
New framework for a strong provider network.
Now, a powerful new Framework for a Strong Provider Network provides a clear strategic model for facilities teams to uphold the brand experience and ensure business continuity — all with the right mix of the highest quality and most cost-effective service providers in the market.
The workflow follows an ongoing cycle of four key actions that can be easily adopted by facilities teams of all sizes:
- Measure performance. Establish clear performance metrics and use data to objectively assess provider service quality.
- Identify areas to improve. Benchmark provider performance against industry standards. Provide a scorecard and feedback for improvement. Consider replacements if necessary.
- Test new providers. Onboard new providers regularly and evaluate their initial performance to ensure they meet your organization’s standards.
- Expand on success. Grow relationships with high-performing providers while ensuring backups are prepared and dependable.
1. Measure performance
To start, you need a full picture of how providers deliver for every location — not only for urgent issues, but with every job. For a meaningful assessment, you need enough data to evaluate provider performance over time and against market standards. Focusing on the numbers brings everyone into the loop, including your providers, on-site operations teams, and finance.
Your Contractor Scorecard makes it easier for you to track your provider performance and find ways to continually improve results — and providers have the same visibility into their performance, so you can have more productive negotiations, create a stronger partnership, and improve service outcomes.
2. Identify areas to improve
Once your scorecards and goals are set, it’s time to pinpoint the most important areas in your network for improvement. Your Contractor Scorecard displays key metrics on service quality, speed, price, engagement, and more.*
Benchmark your providers against your entire network for the KPIs you care most about to understand who is performing to your standard and who is not, then benchmark providers against top performers in the industry to identify areas you can improve.
Your Network Opportunities in Provider Search show where your weak spots are and exactly how much you could improve. With data-driven insights, you don’t have to research or crunch the numbers yourself to discover when there may be more cost-effective, responsive providers.*
3. Test new providers
It’s important to make the process of identifying and testing new providers an ongoing part of your operations. This includes regularly choosing new providers in every key trade, setting them up, and tracking their performance on a few initial work orders. Taking this time and a thoughtful approach ensures you are in a good position when you do need to replace a provider. It also helps you build a strong foundation for a successful relationship with your new provider.
With ServiceChannel, you can quickly reroute and reassign work orders right on the Locations & Provider Assignments page for on-the-fly network optimization. This makes it easier than ever to replace underperforming providers with providers that prove they can deliver you better service at a lower cost.
It’s a best practice to have at least 2 emergency back-ups with proven experience who can be ready to step in when you need them. It’s important to allocate at least 20% (or 10 work orders in a 3-month period) to properly evaluate performance. If they significantly outperform your incumbent, promote them. This encourages better performance across your network.
4. Expand on success
Once you’ve made some initial upgrades, continue to monitor and refine your network. As you progress, keep in mind two guiding principles to deliver on your organization’s financial and operational goals:
- Good work yields more work. Give your best providers additional work to develop and deepen those relationships.
- Ensure resiliency. Nurture dependable back-up providers for all trades to create a strong safety net and protect your facility up-time.
ServiceChannel: A built-in foundation
Maintaining a strong provider network is faster, easier, and more effective when you have a solid infrastructure in place to support you. Next-level improvement is within reach when you’re able to change perspective and have the tools at hand to work smarter — not harder.
With ServiceChannel, you have a flexible infrastructure to support each aspect of your progression through the framework, regardless of your starting point. You have the built-in capabilities you need to ensure a strong provider network — the best possible service at the lowest possible cost based on proven successful provider partnerships.
Get started: Download the Framework.
To get even more best practices directly from the experts, don’t miss the framework webinar series:
- Framework for a Strong Provider Network
- Contractor Scorecard: Benchmarking to Boost Your Network Strength
- Provider Coaching: Build Your Bench Strength by Developing a Network of All-Stars
- Provider Recruiting: Cultivating Connections for a Stronger, More Agile Network
* Provider Search and network opportunities are available in the U.S. only and will be visible if the Provider Search feature is enabled in your account.
