Equipment Servicing & Maintenance - everything you need to know about Service Visits

Whether you own your office kitchen equipment and want Crafty to service it, or if Crafty provided the equipment, this article has the scoop!

What's covered in this article:

1. Equipment Servicing Overview
2. Can you service all equipment?  What's In Scope?
3. How do we get started?  How does it work?
4. How does pricing work?

Introducing Equipment Servicing & Maintenance by Crafty 🔨

Part of Crafty's goal is to be our client’s single partner for all things office food, beverage, and supplies.  Naturally, that includes equipment!  This is why Crafty continues to build out our Equipment Servicing Capabilities.

When it comes to Equipment Servicing, we have a few principles that guide what we do:

1. Preventative maintenance must come first!  To be clear:  you need both preventative and reactive maintenance in place for all of your machines; but ultimately, your equipment is less likely to break down if it's maintained.  That's where our Field Operations team comes in.
2. People are more powerful than technology!  Look, don't get us wrong:  in many ways Crafty is a technology company.  But first and foremost, we are a people company, and when it comes to Equipment Servicing, you need a person to (a) field the ticket, (b) coordinate the visit, (c) perform the maintenance, and (d) follow up.   We arm our people and our clients with great tech, but we pride ourselves in what our people do with that tech (not what our tech does regardless of our people).

Equipment Servicing is in our roots! 🌱

Let's start with a little history...

2015 - Crafty launches in Chicago as an office keg service provider.  In addition to delivering kegs, we provide kegerators and the full-service experience to go with it (e.g., line cleanings

2017 - Crafty begins offering more equipment:  coffee machines, water machines, refrigeration, ice machines, snack walls...  We build out our Field Operations team to provide proactive, preventative maintenance, and we build out our Service Technician team to provide reactive maintenance and servicing.

2018 - Crafty begins regularly working with trusted third party service technicians.  We find that there are great independent technicians everywhere, and Crafty can be value-add to the client by coordinating the work performed by a top-notch independent technician.  Crafty begins building out our trusted Third Party Service Tech database.

2019 - Crafty launches in the Bay Area.  We build out full Service Technician capabilities there as well.

2020 - Crafty launches in Houston by partnering with a local affiliate partner to operate the client accounts.  The local affiliate operator performs the servicing needed, and Crafty relies on coordinating with trusted third party service technicians for certain equipment.

Early 2021 - We launch ticketing in the Crafty Platform.  This feature gives Clients the ability to submit equipment servicing tickets, and for the Crafty team to quickly triage those requests and coordinate the follow up from there.

Late 2022 - Crafty launches Equipment Portfolio Management for global clients.  In addition to reactively managed non-Crafty provided equipment, Crafty will now catalog non-Crafty equipment, manage warranty coordination, serving visits, filter information, etc.

Equipment Portfolio Management 🛠️

Equipment portfolio management covers both Crafty-provided equipment and non-Crafty provided equipment. 

We must admit:  we have built up our expertise in a specific range of equipment:

1. Coffee machines - everything from drip coffee to automatic bean-to-cup espresso and manual espresso machines
2. Commercial refrigeration - this includes any commercial (i.e., non-residential) refrigerators
3. Water & ice machines - this includes any countertop and freestanding water and ice machines (including the Bevi) with a couple of exceptions:
   1. Crafty cannot service built-in, under-counter ice machines
   2. Crafty cannot service built-in, in-counter water taps
4. Kegerators - we have the full range covered 

There are pieces of equipment that Crafty cannot directly service with our service technicians:

1. Dishwashers - we'll use 'em, but won't service 'em
2. Garbage disposals - can't help ya here
3. Some water & ice machines - as mentioned above, we have a few key exceptions:
   1. Crafty cannot service built-in, under-counter ice machines
   2. Crafty cannot service built-in, in-counter water taps
4. Soda fountains - another one bites the dust

Alas!  We have a solution, which is our 3rd Party Service Technician Network!  Within our network, we can subcontract service technician work to a warranty service provider who can bring your equipment back to life.  Crafty will pass through the cost + our management fee.

How do we get started?  How does it work?

When we launch Equipment Portfolio Management with a client, we being a two phase process:  (1) Onboarding, and (2) Operations.

Phase 1:  Onboarding

First, the Client identifies the list of machines they would like to live under our Service Contract. Crafty sends asset tags to your office, for you to tag the pieces of equipment. Asset tags are affixed to each machine and you register them to our asset tracking system. In Crafty's system, we will store the Brand & Model, Serial Number, a photo of the equipment, office location, installation date, installer, purchase date, and retailer.  

Crafty will document and schedule the Preventative Maintenance ("PM") cadence, filters needed for each machine, warranty information, and the primary service technician for this machine within our system.  Our database will also include a projection of the PM and filter costs for each machine.

Phase 2:  Operations

Upon reactive needs (when there is an issue), you (our client!) submit an Equipment Service Ticket in the Crafty Platform with the Asset ID number found on the machine’s asset tag.

After submitting the ticket, you will receive a confirmation email from the Crafty team confirming receipt.

For any visits, both reactive and preventative (scheduled upfront), client will receive a Work Order via email with the following information:

• Service Technician Name & Company
• Contact Information for Service Technician
• Visit Date & Time
• Asset ID to be serviced
• Description of issue / work to be done
• Requested information Crafty needs from client, such as:
• Client onsite contact for visit (Name, Email, Phone)

How does pricing work?

Regardless of whether we're sending a Crafty technician or a trusted third party, we organize our pricing around who owns the equipment and how it was provided.  There are generally three ways:

1. Client purchased the equipment through Crafty
2. Crafty provided the equipment as a rental or for free.  In this case, Crafty retains ownership of the equipment
3. Client purchased the equipment through someone else (not Crafty)

Wondering which method is best for you?  Linked here is an article that explains the Pros & Cons of each.

Pricing depends on the way the equipment was provided.  Here's the breakdown:

 

*For equipment owned by Client and managed by Crafty, Crafty charges a monthly fee to cover management and coordination costs (e.g., warranty coordination, service technician scheduling, dispatch, and communication). Crafty cannot service equipment that is under a lease or rental agreement with a separate provider.  Equipment must be owned by the client.  Crafty can only manage equipment that falls into our scope.

**PM = Preventative Maintenance.  Each machine has a schedule of PMs that must be completed.  PMs are typically required by the manufacturer in order to stay under warranty and often have a "kit" that must be purchased and used to conduct the PM.

Does pricing change whether it's a third party service technician or a Crafty service technician?

No matter what, the coverage outlined above always holds true.

If it's a third party service technician, Crafty will be passing through the cost to the client.  If it's a Crafty service technician, Crafty will bill the client for the work completed.  The rates and prices within each invoice (whether third party or Crafty) will be standard, market pricing for the work completed.

 

Alrighty folks, that just about covers everything... if you have additional questions, you know where to find us! 🚧