How to Ensure Customer Positive Experience in Facility Management Industry


Like other countries, Facility Management is an industry that has professionals in the built industry as its core people for values delivery to corporate and individuals in Nigeria. It is a multidisciplinary industry in the sense that estate surveyors and valuers, architects, engineers, quantity surveyors among others have to work together before sustainable values could be created, delivered and captured.
Despite being at infancy stage, FM and built environment professionals must coordinate their process, people, product and technology towards improved solutions delivery now and in the future. Strategic alignment of the 3Ps and T is a must. In this regard, professionals need to appropriate new and smart technologies, standardize their process, train, and retrain their people and create solutions that solve emerging problems on critical facilities. This is imperative because Nigeria’s interest on maintenance of facilities is increasing every year, at least for the last five years.   
From the company side, customers can only have positive experience when their interface with a Facility Management company is seamless within process, people, product and technology components. As long as company aims at capturing values in terms of money, customer will continue to demand for added values not just values. That is why companies need to deliver benefits not features or attributes. Then, the process that will guarantee negotiation and execution must be suitable and delivered the expected results. In this case, FM companies must pay specific attention to people component that needs to interact with the clients. While doing this, professionalism and superior engagement remain the core components that must be stressed at every stage of bargaining and executing clients’ works.
From the client side, users of FM solutions want companies that will reduce their cost of maintaining or repairing facilities. Apart from this, flexibility, integrated services, industry specific specialism, real time performance metrics and response are the evolving client demands.

Smart and connected devices that collate real time data and analyse for effective decision making should be at the heart of creating customer positive experience from the client and company sides. Both the client and company need to work towards sustainable value co-creation and sharing following the 3Ps and T.
Within the sustainable value co-creation framework, Infoprations has learnt that appropriate value can only be created when the company considered client’s process, people and the specific product wanted along with its (company) process, people and product. For instance, a client might need a product based on the fact that a relative or a particular company recommended it. But, company might discover that the product is not apt in solving the present issue on the facility expected to be maintained or repaired. In such situation, both the client and company must find a balance before value can be created together. In other words, facility management companies need to emphasise collective strategy at the inspection and execution stages of solutions offering to clients.
Having created value collectively, Infoprations’ template also proposes that customer positive experience can evolve in FM industry when companies initiate sustainable value sharing. Like SVC, SVS should also be formed and used by considering clients’ inputs. Both value creation and sharing should not be the main responsibility of companies. Clients’ voice must be heard. Without this, customer positive experience will remain elusive in Nigeria and other countries where Facility Management still budding.

Comments