Nationwide Property Solutions
Nationwide Property Solutions (NPS) specialise in tailoring specific property maintenance packages to client needs. They needed a online web application to match their third-party service providers with their geographically diverse customers.
Contractors receive work orders from the new system directly to their mobile phone, fax machine or email. Quotations and orders are managed alongside customer and contractor details and invoices are automatically produced once the work is completed.
The whole system is hosted by Evergreen in secured environment with 24 hour backups and fail-safe power so that their business continuity is maintained.
Full Case Study
Since 2007 Nationwide Property Solutions (NPS) has provided the ultimate one-stop shop for core and specialist trades covering reactive and planned property maintenance to commercial and domestic UK clients. By working hard and smart, the business has grown rapidly based on quality, excellent service, seamless communication and JEMma, their powerful web-based 'secret weapon' from Evergreen.
The ultimate business assistant
Like the ultimate business assistant that never sleeps, JEMma's the key to immediate, time-saving communication between NPS, its clients and a network of approved engineers. Knowledge is power in Facilities Management and the immediate information delivery that Evergreen has made possible delivers priceless peace of mind for UK property managers. From a visitor and search-engine-friendly website that promotes NPS around the clock, to electronic real-time communications, JEMma facilitates cost-effective project management – and helps Nationwide optimise staff levels. The system handles everything from quotes, progress reports and electronic sign-off within moments of jobs finishing, to completion certificates, billing and much more – all available online or as convenient emails and texts to various mobile platforms.
Supporting rapid business growth
It was another NPS partner company that recommended Evergreen and launched this successful partnership.
'Evergreen's system has helped us grow faster than we'd ever dreamed when we started,' says Managing Director Rob McTiffin. 'Traditional ACT!® server software lacked the capability to communicate with customers and engineers in the ways we wanted. Commissioning Evergreen was one of our best business decisions.'
Positive initial impressions
Since then, Nationwide's helpdesk managers, Wayne Baker and Tom Lane have been at the frontline of work with the Gloucestershire web development company.
Wayne says: 'From first contact we were impressed with how easy Evergreen was to work with, the team's willingness to deliver what we requested, the quality of their work and their good value. We quickly learned not to worry whether our ideas could be realised; Evergreen simply makes it happen.
'As with any complex project communicating what we needed was quite challenging, but with support from Evergreen, we quickly came up with the idea of disassembling the current front-end, then reassembling it with image manipulation software to show what we wanted. Since we've briefed in this format, system improvements have gone perfectly, enabling us to have a product with many first USPs to our industry, which other Evergreen users may not have. As soon as Evergreen sees our visual they develop the code to make it happen. They thrive on rapid problem solving, realising our ideas and adding extra improvements for good measure.'
Personal service and system reliability
NPS Operations Director Damien Taylor is perfectly placed to see what differentiates Evergreen from other IT and web suppliers.
'Aside from their technical skills, it's down to personal service and the way we can speak with real people, not "robots" in some anonymous call centre. In this respect, Evergreen's responsiveness mirrors our own approach to service. The system's been incredibly reliable too, with only a few minutes of downtime, due to occasional server reboots, in three years.'
Customers enjoy fast access and an easy-to-learn system
From the outset, NPS wanted a system that customers could access quickly, easily and reliably online – whether to monitor job progress, for one-click quotation acceptance and jobsheet creation, or to download sets of data for completed projects. Transparency has always been the key in 'showing off' their performance.
'JEMma is incredibly easy to learn and its user dynamics are superb' explains Baker. 'My helpdesk colleagues can set up user accounts in moments while they talk with clients on the phone, and system mastery takes just a few days. With so much useful functionality available, we like to drip-feed new features to clients so as not to overwhelm them; they're constantly amazed to learn that JEMma can do something else that's useful to them and regularly say they love its easy-use, time-saving features and uncomplicated web interface.'
'We'd like to keep Evergreen to ourselves'
If it involves the fabric of commercial or residential property, NPS takes care of it. Providing services as diverse as roof repairs and pest control demands fast, reliable real-time communication and a robust system that 'just works' 24/7. Given that Evergreen has delivered this, and more, would MD Rob McTiffin and his team recommend their online partner?
'We could, but we won't,' he says with a knowing smile, 'because we don't want our competitors beating a path to their door. It's not just the code behind our site that has so impressed us, but the way nothing is too much trouble, no-one ever says "that can't be done" and the solutions they deliver are so far ahead of anything else in our market. Evergreen will keep our innovative ideas to themselves, but their technical ability should be available to everyone. In an ideal world, we'd like to keep Evergreen to ourselves!'
