Summary of Key Facts
Client: CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc. (CBRE)
Benefits:
- Reduced operating costs by 50%
- Improved processes and productivity
- Improved responsiveness and service quality
- Increased tenant satisfaction
The Client
CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. (CBRE), a Fortune 500 and S&P500 company headquartered in Los Angeles, is the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm and currently manages 1.7 billion square feet of building space. The Company serves real estate owners, investors and occupiers through more than 300 offices worldwide. CB Richard Ellis offers strategic advice and execution for property sales and leasing; corporate services; property, facilities and project management, mortgage banking, appraisal and valuation, development services, investment management; and research and consulting.
We couldn’t be more pleased with the new system – to ensure the quickest response rates and the highest quality service possible, we require real-time access to a central system. MRI Angus improves our processes and eliminates the technological issues that previously vexed us; it does so with greater flexibility and performance, and significantly reduced costs.
– Karen Washington, Asset Services / Technical Services, CBRE Washington
The Challenge
CBRE Washington DC’s Asset Services/Technical Services Division provides full-service maintenance and engineering services to property owners and tenants in the mid-Atlantic region. By way of its Call Center, the division coordinates building technicians and engineers who provide routine repairs and maintenance to sites covering four major market places – Washington DC, Northern Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. The Call Center faced several challenges servicing the region. Foremost was the difficulty in ensuring the highest level of service by a large fi eld workforce spread across many properties in the mid-Atlantic region. “We faced many challenges with our old Call Center system which impeded our ability to effectively manage our engineers and provide tenants with responsive and consistent service.” states Karen Washington, Building Operation Manager, Asset Services / Technical Services. Under the old system, tenants called their requests into the main Call Center number where four full time staff manually created a ticket and entered it into a maintenance and request tracking system. The Call Center staff then dispatched the request to the engineer via radio and fax. Once the ticket was closed, the engineer faxed the ticket back and/or acknowledged completion by radio. The process was tedious, time consuming and often redundant.
“We had many difficulties tracking the progress of work requests and monitoring the activities of our building technicians and engineers. The functionality of the old system did not provide us with the visibility, transparency and system tools necessary to ensure responsive service. On many occasions tickets did not close in a timely manner – they were closed late because engineers were still out in the facilities and not able to fax the closed tickets back. We were not responsive and the process was very time consuming. Furthermore, as the Call Center grew, the system was cumbersome. Too often, server access was difficult and fax lines sometimes went down. It was painful.” explains Washington. In addition, reporting in the old system was difficult and not accessible to all staff, and anytime the information in the system needed changes or adjustments staff had to track down IT to carry out updates.
The Solution
The Asset Services/Technical Services Division needed an efficient and cost-effective solution that would allow real time access to information, improve its call center operations, permit responsive high quality service as well as provide the ease and flexibility for future growth. Asset Services/Technical Services set out in search of a new system and ultimately selected the MRI Angus Call Center which provides the ability to consolidate service management activities including service coordination, dispatch, tracking, closure and billing. Today, the Washington DC office uses MRI Angus to dispatch 140 building technicians supporting 130 properties totaling 16 million square feet of commercial real estate. When tenants submit their service requests to the Call Center from a custom tenant Web site, work orders are instantly routed to the building technicians’ and engineers’ BlackBerry® smartphones resulting in increased responsiveness. “Compared to other products we evaluated, MRI Angus was far better suited to our needs and easier to use. Employees and tenants have embraced MRI Angus and tenants are particularly impressed with the quick response and with their ability to track progress of their request in real time.” states Washington.
MRI Angus improves our processes and eliminates the technological issues that previously vexed us.
– Karen Washington, CBRE Washington
The Results
BEFORE
Total Square Feet serviced: ~9 million square feet
Total Number of Properties: ~90 buildings
Total Number of Field Employees: 75
Total Number of Call Center Staff: 4
PRESENTLY
Total Square Feet serviced: 16 million square feet
Total Number of Properties: 130 buildings
Total Number of Field Employees: 140
Total Number of Call Center Staff: 2
CBRE Washington DC has been using MRI Angus for 5 years and has seen significant benefits: improved processes, productivity and responsiveness, enhanced tracking and follow-up on all Tenant requests, better reporting and follow up capabilities, and much improved ease of use for Call Center staff, building technicians, engineers and tenants.
Furthermore, with MRI Angus the Washington Call Center has lowered its operating costs (50%) and has been able to operate with a smaller staff than previously. “While our portfolio has grown in square footage and number of tenants, MRI Angus has increased our capacity to accommodate a growing number of calls and requests. Last year, the Call Center staffed by 1 full time employee, received 26,000 requests via email, tenant web site and telephone. Under the old system we would have never been able to handle the volume – MRI Angus has allowed us to expanded our reach without adding resources to do so.”
“We couldn’t be more pleased with the new system – to ensure the quickest response rates and the highest quality service possible, we require real-time access to a central system. MRI Angus improves our processes and eliminates the technological issues that previously vexed us; it does so with greater flexibility and performance, and significantly reduced costs.” states Washington.
