Outsourcing in Action: How Retailers Can Achieve Peak Performance During the Holidays

When you’re managing multiple retail locations, the holiday season is an especially critical time to deliver a top notch customer experience. But holiday planning may mean that repair and maintenance can take a backseat. And that makes it even more challenging to keep your stores in great shape during a period of such heavy traffic. 

Some of the challenges the holiday rush can present include:

• Excessive repair and maintenance expenses due to equipment failures or repair delays. Without proper attention, staff becomes distracted with facilities issues instead of focusing on providing exceptional customer service.
• Inconsistent vendor reliability and slow response times. A lack of visibility and control over essential servicing adds complexity to already pressured operations.
• The increased volume of work is too much for one facilities manager, but there’s no possibility of adding headcount for one season. It can be hard to strike a balance during the busy holidays while optimizing costs.
• It’s difficult to prioritize maintenance and repair needs when stores are usually full. Facilities managers often have to defer until January, which leads you with suboptimal asset performance that affects the shopping experience.
• As you expand locations, the operational complexity grows too. Without agile and scalable facilities management processes, challenges compound as shopping increases.

To provide first-class customer experience across all locations at this critical time of year, retailers are turning to modern outsourcing partners for flexible solutions that improve efficiency, reliability, and budget optimization when they need it most.

How Retail Businesses Can Harness Outsourcing During the Holidays and Beyond

Operating at peak performance year round, let alone during the holidays, can be a tall order. A modern, transparent approach to outsourcing partnerships can help fill in the gaps. To streamline operations, enhance brand standards, and elevate customer experience across every location, modern outsourcing partners are helping retail businesses in four key areas:

1. IT and technology support

You can’t make a sale if your point of sale (POS) system is down, and retailers are leveraging outsourcing to ensure essential tech like this is working without interruption and without security breaches. No matter the level of sophistication of your system—from simple hardware to futuristic IoT integrations—outsourcing partners can help maintain safe and seamless operation, especially in the holiday season, when volume of sales increases.

2. Logistics and supply chain management

With the proper support, retail leaders can ensure that their locations are properly stocked and shelves are inviting and full. When that is the case, guests can find their own items without having to rely on staff, streamlining operations between the front and back of house and providing a pleasant holiday shopping experience.

3. Staffing and recruitment

Retail is an industry that requires a high volume of hiring, and staffing needs only intensify during busy seasons like the holidays. Outsourcing partners can help find highly-qualified staff all year round or support your regular staff with seasonal headcount. 

4. Repairs and maintenance

Partnering with a modern outsourcer for repairs and maintenance is a year-round game changer for retailers. The right partner will help cover:

• Asset maintenance: Staff can focus on helping guests, while a dedicated outsourcing partner ensures optimal uptime with preventive asset maintenance and speedy repairs—all when guests aren’t shopping in store. 
• Cleaning and sanitation: The cleanliness of not only the store floor but exterior environment can invite or deter guests from shopping with you. When consumers have so many options for holiday shopping, make sure your stores are pristine and inviting for all.
• HVAC: The longer guests are in-store, the more opportunities they have to make purchases, but if the temperature is too hot or too cold, that could cut their visit short. An outsourcing partner can help maintain a comfortable environment that encourages people to stay in store longer. 
• Lighting and electrical: Also critical to maintaining a pleasant and comfortable environment is lighting, which can contribute to the guest experience and add to a festive ambiance. Electrical also is important to maintain asset uptime, especially for revenue-generating assets like the POS system or security systems. 

Repair and Maintenance Outsourcing Offers Operational Excellence and Cost Efficiency

Modern outsourcing, otherwise known as outsourcing 2.0, offers you the facilities support you need to tackle increasingly complex operations without adding extra headcount or expenses becoming unmanageable. 

With outsourcing 2.0, you have the transparency and control you need to offer first-rate shopping experiences that create loyal customers, empowering you with the freedom to focus on the big picture.  

These partnerships enable you to:

1. Focus on seasonal shopping surges

You don’t have to sacrifice operational excellence during busy seasons like the holidays due to lack of time or budget to repair and maintain critical assets—you can prioritize both. 

When you’re busy focusing on customer care for an influx of holiday shoppers, your outsourcing partner is making sure your assets are being serviced quickly and correctly for maximum asset uptime. 

2. Maintain consistent customer experiences as you expand

No matter the location or how many stores you operate, keep the store appearance and guest experience consistently high and aligned with your brand standards. This will help bring customers back year round.

The holidays also raise unique operational challenges that you may not continue to face at the start of the year. Whether you need outsourcing support for all trades or just a few, across any number of locations, a modern outsourcing partner will flex up or down to meet your needs.

3. Control and reduce operating expenses (OPEX)

With proper preventive maintenance and speedy emergency repairs performed by vetted experts, outsourcing 2.0 ensures costs are transparent and optimized to fit your budget without any surprises. 

With a centralized platform that acts as a single source of truth, you can see performance data for each and every location. That makes it easier to ensure spending is optimized and invested in the right areas, especially during busy seasons.

4. Create and implement agile, scalable facilities management processes

Your outsourcing partner can help you leverage a national network of highly-vetted service providers that get the job done the first time. 

With an operational playbook designed to scale with your business, you’ll be agile enough to stay ahead of the curve with high-performing assets instead of trying to catch up with emergency repairs. And that can make all the difference during periods like the holidays that are critical to drive revenue.

Run Your Stores with Ease

To improve performance across locations, boost productivity, and benefit from lower OPEX during the holidays and beyond, it’s important to find the right outsourcing 2.0 partner. They’ll understand the unique needs of your business, no matter the season. Whether you’re in apparel, grocery, or anything in between, a modern outsourcing partner will give you the support you need to build brand loyalty through peak store performance year round.