Equips vs. ServiceChannel

Equips is great to handle multiple units at different locations and maintain stats. As for managing 3rd party vendors, Equips still puts some of the responsibility on me to respond to 3rd party invoices. This was well Managed when I first stared with Equips over 3 years ago. As of lately, this seems to be slacking on a bigger scale. Almost every time I make a service call for our color copiers, I later receive an invoice from the vendor, and an invoice-reminder from the vendor. This is currently an ongoing issue which concerns me about adding any more units in the future.

ServiceChannel is well suited for companies that have multiple locations or a few very large buildings. In my experience the system allows one person to manage 150 to 200 small retail locations but when you add restaurants and buildings with lots of equipment then it gets more complex and the number of locations that one person can effectively manage is greatly reduced. You can effectively manager 50 or 30,000+ locations with this system if you have the personal. There are several free or cost-effective programs available if you are only looking to manage a dozen or so locations.

Incentivized

• Handles communication well.
• Easy to use portal.
• Quick response time.

• ServiceChannel listens to me the user more than any other product I have ever been involved with. It seems like every few months there are some upgrades and improvements to an already great system.
• They have some great folks employed who are very accessible and very knowledgeable in this system, they are eager to help out and jump in, and they are never trying to up-sell me during these times.
• I believe they have some of the best practices around for helping out new vendors, who have never been exposed to any CMMS system, they help to ease the fear that contractors/vendors have from the onboarding process thru system training.

Incentivized

• I still get invoices from the 3rd party vendor. Equips has inconsistent directions on how to handle this.

• Sometimes the functionality of the software is slow.
• Example...I insert a WO# into the home search box and it comes up with "nothing found". I return to the home screen and repeat the exact same process and it takes me to my WO. This happens at least 50% of the time.
• They just finished up with a system upgrade (I think), and during the 3 week period I could not pull mass approved invoices for my AP department. That was a real hindrance.
• I am not particularly fond of the new dashboard format. It's not as easy to move around in. However it's new and I'm sure I will get used to it quick enough.

Incentivized

I gave it a high rating because it's an easy to use platform.

• It walks you step by step to goal accomplishment
• It doesn't drown you in tech speak or unnecessary steps
• It appears to be created by the busy facilities manager that just needs the good stuff with no fluff.
• Not to be rude but if a facilities manager can't function in SC easily they may not be in the right field.

Incentivized

Sue Thomas is the reason...

• If a vendor has a template to upload I can ask for her support and it's done.
• If I need immediate data for a meeting and I'm away from my computer she can grab it for me on the fly.
• I've walked out of meetings looking like a stud based on the foreground work Sue did to prepare me.
• If there is a technical issues she will find a work around for me so I can focus on my job not my admin work.
• Clear and timely communication on every and all open issues.

Incentivized

It is very easy to set up ServiceChannel but the one thing I believe they could make easier is the vendor portion of ServiceChannel. We get a lot of complaints on how difficult it is for them when trying to get set up.

Incentivized

Equips is more affordable in comparison and we still get to use Ricoh through them.

Service Channel bridged the gap for us to issue work orders directly to vendors. Maximo Asset Management did not have a user-friendly way for us to do what Service Channel does on the vendor side. Also, at the time of our selection, Maximo was missing the site portal but has since developed a solution of their own.

Incentivized

• We've saved money by switching to Equips.

• It increased visibility on how much we were spending on HVAC repairs/replacements and allowed us to make changes to reduce costs
• Before we were using paper invoices from the vendors, which creates a scenario of losing/missing invoices into AP. Then we start using the Service Channel invoicing and reduce errors to below 1%.
• Gives you the capability to add trades and adjust to your needs, so you can get better tracking of specific items.

Incentivized