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CASH IN ON CURB APPEAL
By Kevin Dent
To stand out from the competition, gain customer recognition, and increase business, your financial institution needs curb appeal. Designing and maintaining a functional and aesthetically pleasing exterior is a key component of curb appeal, which can be achieved by developing a comprehensive maintenance
plan, with corresponding specifications for time and scope of services.
A professional Exterior Services Management® (ESM) company will develop a customized program that centralizes operations and streamlines delivery of services, such as landscaping, irrigation, snow and ice control, and parking lot maintenance. A cohesive management program can improve curb appeal, reduce expenses, mitigate liability concerns, and provide quality-assured service to each branch year-round.
Centralizing Operations
There’s no single-source approach to invoicing or setting quality assurance standards for numerous properties. Services
contracted locally and billed separately create a snowstorm of invoices and problems for monitoring quality assurance. Consolidation and utilizing a technologically advanced ESM provider can save maintenance budget dollars, provide
value for the maintenance spend, and ensure that branch exteriors meet specified formats.
What Is ESM?
ESM is being embraced as the marketplace
recognizes the fragmented, sometimes chaotic, nature of dealing with multiple vendors providing multiple services.
ESM companies work with pre-qualified contractors, who offer the ESM company the lowest cost per service.
The ESM provider is responsible for invoicing, quality control, renegotiating
contracts, specification preparation, billing disputes, and often being the buffer
for legal actions. Having an industry-focused professional management
company take responsibility for exterior services provides more time to focus on core business decisions and customer
satisfaction.
Industry-Focused Professionals Provide Savings
The way businesses deal with their exterior services, especially those with multiple locations crossing city limits
and state lines, indicates a growing interest in ESM. The cost savings, efficiencies
of management, and issues of quality, consistency, and dependability
all indicate that working with industry-specific professional providers,
as opposed to local contractors, is good business management. The ESM platform creates a win-win situation for everyone. The customer receives lower cost services, the ESM profits by managing numerous locations, and the contractor stays busy with fewer management
concerns.
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