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Grounds Control

Grounds Control has over 30 years of experience in Exterior Facility Services operating primarily on businesses and government facilities. They lead the way in Landscape Maintenance, Snow and Ice Removal, and Parking Lot Maintenance. By combining UtilizeCore and Grounds Control USA, they have been able to completely redefine the way they operate on behalf of their customers - Providing a consistent level of quality and helping reduce overall cost.

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Clients

Grounds Control prides themselves on being able to simplify their clients business with professional exterior facility management services. They are headquartered in Daniel Island, South Carolina but their reach expands throughout the US.

Challenges

Grounds Control was facing several challenges; they had manual, time-consuming, and repetitive processes in place, which made it hard for them to work efficiently. They did not have a robust system to manage their client’s service requests; as a result, their offices were overburdened with unnecessary manual tasks. A lack of organization resulted in a loss of important data. Manual invoice processing consumed a lot of the team member’s time even if it was a single transaction. Furthermore, a notification system was not in place to alert team members about upcoming scheduled maintenance, and without a dedicated client portal, the clients felt a lack of transparency.

  • Manual processes
  • Loss of data
  • Inefficient invoice and payment processing
  • Inability to receive updates about upcoming maintenance
  • Lack of transparency

Goals

Grounds Control’s goal was to have an end-to-end solution to streamline their operation - Focusing on a centralized portal for internal operations, vendor management, and client management. Overall, they wanted to increase the efficiency of their day-to-day operations, enhance transparency for their clients, and increase contractor compliance.

Solution

UtilizeCore’s end-to-end automation solution has helped Grounds Control in achieving its goal to deliver quality service nationally. They were able to integrate all their existing business solutions into the UtilizeCore platform, which helped them automate processes, keep track of service requests, providing a better customer experience leading to increased overall revenue. We also integrated the NOAA weather forecasting system with customized rules to ensure timely execution and implementation of procedures. Data management tools were also introduced to their system so they can handle bulk operations with higher convenience. A vendor portal allowed them to notify and remind vendors about tasks and view progress through defined KPIs. A client portal was also created to increase transparency and enhance the customer experience; clients can now view the progress via real-time dashboards and rate Grounds Control’s services as well. They can also process invoices more smoothly, and payments have become faster than ever. The compliance manager provided Grounds Control with an enhanced ability to keep track of Contractor Compliance so that all TPP, COIs, W9s, and more can be digitally stored and accessible anytime. Overall Grounds Control effectively changed their workflow facilitation expansion while minimizing costs.

  • Increase in productivity
  • Automation
  • Reminders and alerts
  • Weather alerts
  • Enhanced customer experience
  • Transparency and monitoring
  • Faster payments
  • Consistent SOPs
  • Compliance Manager
Us Snow Pros
US Snow Pros, which has been around for 20 years, is a Coast to Coast snow removal organization with 24/7 snow and ice removal services for residents and businesses.
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Clients

US Snow Pros covers the lower 48 states providing services to Commercial & Industrial Properties, Apartment Communities, Office Properties, Retail & Shopping Malls, Healthcare / Hospitals & much more. Their extensive background in snow and ice management allows them to help their clients with preseason planning, snow emergency services, all the while providing round the clock on demand support to ensure everybody's needs are met in real time.

Challenges

US Snow Pros were experiencing many challenges during their snow seasons. Due to the unpredictability of when a snow event was going to occur, they were always very reactive to the event. This made it challenging for them to notify their service providers in time of an event and therefore relied on trust that their partners would go to their client properties on time. Additionally, once their providers arrived on the site, they did not have a system in place to provide them with service verification based on the work that was being performed by the service provider in real time. This led to a lot of additional labor to be performed by the dispatch team - I.e, phone calls & text messages to ensure they were meeting the SLA’s set forth by their clients. Upon a storm completion, sending client receivables and validation vendor payable was another challenging process that took weeks on end to complete.

  • Manual processes
  • Limited visibility
  • No service verification
  • Cumbersome AP/AR processes

Goals

US Snow Pros was looking for a platform that can streamline their operation during a snow event. Ideally, they could be more proactive rather than reactive during the chaos of a snow storm. This would allow for them to provide their customers with a better overall experience which could lead to awarding more locations from that customer. Additionally, they were hoping to cut down the amount of time it takes to invoice their clients & verify their vendor invoices.

Solution

US Snow Pros partnered with UtilizeCore which helped improve the overall experience from their dispatch / operations team during a snowstorm. They were able to leverage the NOAA integration to forecast out when weather was going to be impacting their client locations. The bulk dispatch functionality created an easy way for the team to notify their providers on when to be on location for the snow event. The field mobile app allowed their service partners to check in / out of the location, providing them with real time visibility & updates on their status. Photos taken from the field also ensured that the provider was performing the work in the proper capacity. Lastly, they received automated Accounts Payable & Accounts Receivable billing by leveraging the rate tables which live at each location. (I.e, TnM, Per Service, Per Task, Equipment TnM, Per Event). The UtilizeCore system allowed for US Snow Pros to get a better handle on their snow and now they can manage more locations with the same headcount.

  • Service verification
  • Geo-fence check in / out
  • Automated AP / AR
  • WeatherWorks integration for per event billing
  • NOAA integration for forecasting
  • Scalability
  • Subcontractor Compliance Monitoring