Aspect Maintenance

Source: Construction Digital

Date :11/04/2008 15:15:49

Tired with the low standards of professionalism within the property maintenance sector, William Davies and Nick Bizley decided to set up Aspect Maintenance to meet customers’ demands

Written by Lucy Mowatt and Produced by Nicholas Davies

In April 2005, began trading with the aim of offering a reliable and high quality maintenance service to both commercial and residential clients within the M25. Nick Bizley, who has significant experience in the maintenance and refurbishment sector, joined forces with William Davies in order to fulfil this aim.

“I had previously been involved in private equity and advising on the purchase of small businesses, growing those and selling them on,” William explains. With such experience he has been able to grow Aspect Maintenance according to proven strategies and build a strong reputation for reliability.

“The market place wasn’t being serviced at that time so we put together a business that I suppose improved the levels of service and efficiency that people were getting from their maintenance company,” he continues.

And it’s a model that seems to be working. Aspect Maintenance is expecting to see year-on-year growth of between 50 and 100 percent, with its turnover growing from £3 million to £6 million, which will be accompanied by further expansion. “We’ve really achieved that by giving those levels of service that are attractive to our clients,” Will says. As if further proof were needed, the company is looking to expand its reach to regions outside of the M25.

“We have a lot of clients that serve maybe 20 or 30 sites in London and another 20 or 30 outside, and they’re pushing us to serve sites outside of London,” he says. The company has looked closely at its business model and has worked towards perfecting its service before taking on the extra work, which is set to occur during the next twelve months.

Will goes on to explain that the company is looking to continue with its current growth strategy. “We’d like to grow organically because we can control it,” he says; allowing Aspect Maintenance to expand with its own methodologies and people ensures that all its work is completed to the standards its customers expect.

Core services

Aspect Maintenance is divided into two businesses; one responding to emergency call-outs, the other carrying out refurbishments and estimate work. Able to cope with plumbing emergencies, electrical faults, problems with heating and air conditioning, roofing and structural issues, the emergency call out team can deliver services to residential and commercial properties quickly and smoothly. With a similarly well equipped team of estimators, Aspect Maintenance is able to refurbish most properties.

“We have a team of estimators that specialise in various trades and we send them out free of charge to give a potential client a fixed price for a piece of work and then we have a team of engineers that work on those projects,” William states.

Project management

With a portfolio of commercial clients including Fitness First Health Clubs, Strada Restaurants and Grainger Residential Management, it is imperative that Aspect Maintenance can fulfil its clients’ needs both in terms of refurbishment work and emergency call outs. To make all areas of its business more productive and to maintain reliability, Aspect Maintenance has introduced the Siclops job management system.

This PDA-based system is capable of managing people, appointments and invoicing. Able to micromanage jobs, each engineer is issued with a handheld computer so that the company can monitor the expected arrival time of its engineers to a job, when the job actually began and whether they will hit any delays, meaning that engineers can be reallocated where and when they are needed. Not only that, but invoices can be relayed to head office electronically so that they can be issued quickly because there is “no paperwork slowing down the process”.

“We have done some research recently on how much time is wasted by people waiting in for engineers that either don’t meet their arranged time or don’t turn up at all and it’s quite phenomenal, so we’ve set out with the two-hour appointment window, which is achievable,” William says. On 93 percent of occasions, Aspect Maintenance delivers this target, and it is working hard to achieve a 100 percent success rate. In order to demonstrate this commitment to reliability, the company offers its customers a ten percent discount voucher if their target time is missed.

Quality service

With a team of approximately 110 experienced engineers available 24/7, Aspect Maintenance is able to respond effectively too. As this figure is set to increase, William says that the new management system will make managing resources much simpler than the previous system.

The firm also tries to reward length of service with the business in order to retain skilled staff. The workforce sees pay increases according to length of service as well as the chance to hone their skills; with these advantages, Aspect Maintenance has a higher level of staff retention than many companies within the maintenance and refurbishment industry.

All of the company’s employees and standards are also audited by their relevant industry. “We’re NICEIC registered (for the electrical side), CORGI registered on the gas side, we’re in the National Federation of Roofing Contractors, Federation of Master Builders for the refurb and larger construction side and we’re also a member of the Painting and Decorating Association,” Will states. This not only reassures that Aspect engineers will turn up on time, but that their services will be high quality and certified by a regulatory body.

Indeed this is the brand image that Aspect Maintenance has worked hard to nurture from the outset. And the company’s brand is striking; having worked with specialists, Aspect Maintenance has developed two brands. The blue and yellow of the emergency call out team is a “reactive brand”, while the refurbishment arm of the business has a more subtle, grey branding, which William says really emphasises the differences between the two divisions.

William goes on to explain that there is a lack of branding within the industry that Aspect Maintenance can really use to its advantage. As such, everything from engineer clothing to the vehicles and company stationery has a consistent and professional appearance, which supports word of mouth advertising from satisfied customers.

With a solid strategy and a strong business model, founded on swift response and a quality service, Aspect Maintenance is on target to meet its financial targets, expand outside of the London area and raise brand awareness around the UK.

Click here to view the corporate brochure on Aspect Maintenance