How Innovation Can Help You Bring More to Your Customers:  An Ultra Shine Case Study

We’ve all heard it before ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. But if that was the case, we’d still be using typewriters and dial up phones. How productive would that be? It would be practically impossible to scale a business doing so. Do you think Amazon would have gotten to where it is today if it wasn’t for investing in new technologies and embracing innovation?

Just because it’s not broken, doesn’t mean it can’t be better. We’ve been looking for efficiencies that can make our lives easier and speed up processes since the beginning of time. Innovation is implementing a new idea, product or method. Now we’re not saying that every new idea deserves a gold star but it’s important to compare them with the current way of doing things and see how it measures up.

Time is money and this couldn’t be truer in the commercial cleaning industry where labour cost accounts for 80% of all total expenses. If you can find a way to save time and maximize your efficiency, then you can save money for your customers! Take an automatic floor scrubber for example. An automatic floor scrubber would help to  increase efficiency by 75% because they can do it quicker than a human, exert less energy than we would, and are even more hygienic while conserving water. Don’t get us wrong, it may cost more upfront, but it will pay for itself quite quickly. Especially when you start to see how utilizing technology can help maximize productivity and make the most out of your time and effort. 

 Let’s take a look at how companies like Ultra Shine have increased their efficiency and brought more value to their customers through the use of Robotics and AI. By being able to recognize and act on the efficiencies they find, they are able to bring more value without breaking the bank.

At Ultra Shine, they thrive off innovation and finding better ways to do things. So when they discovered Bob they knew they had to bring him to their customers. Bob is a Robotic Floor Scrubber, but also another member of their custodial team. He works by using AI (Artificial Intelligence), mapping algorithms and vision sensors to come to life and increase their offerings to their customers. 

Ultra Shine is not here to cut corners and neither should you. Bob doesn’t replace a valued member of the custodial team, he adds to it and optimizes the work being done. Bob allows their experienced custodial staff to focus on higher-priority, more detailed jobs in order to drive customer satisfaction and find savings that can then be passed on to their customers. If freeing up an employee to do more detailed, meaningful tasks wasn’t enough, Bob is able to offer additional cost saving potential by offering fewer facility repairs due to human error, reduce your liability risk, and the potential hard and soft savings associated with employee fatigue and repetitive strain. Ultra Shine values their employees and has seen a dramatic change by allowing them to accomplish tasks at a higher productivity rate and become more meaningfully engaged in their job. 

Let’s dive deeper into the three key findings Ultra Shine found when utilizing innovation and new technologies to try to bring more to their customers...

Investing in new technologies and embracing innovation…

Allows your employees to focus on more important tasks Remember, Bob isn’t replacing a member on their custodial team, he’s an additional member. By focusing on the monotonous chore of floor scrubbing, he is able to free up an employee to focus on more important and detailed tasks. By allowing employees to focus on more high-level tasks, you leave them feeling more energized and motivated in their work.  When you use  innovation and new technologies, you are freeing up your employees to do what they do best, bringing more to your customers.

Helps to streamline processes to help you run more efficiently Bob is self-sufficient acting as an additional custodian on shift cleaning up to 1.2 metres per second himself, only requiring cleaning initiation and guidance to recharge. If automatic floor scrubbers can increase efficiency by 75%, imagine how much more efficient it could be if you didn’t need an employee to operate it the whole time. Ultra Shine has found that by utilizing Bob and the efficiencies he brings, they have increased customer satisfaction and have been able to bring cost savings to their customers over time. By finding technologies that can help your company become more efficient, you are optimizing the work being done and bringing more to your customers in the long run. If Bob wasn’t being run in some of the facilities that Ultra Shine looks after, that work would fall on to the employees taking away a lot of their time and effort. The technology that Ultra Shine has chosen to use and implement has one key goal in mind: bring more to their customers. If you are looking to bring more to your customers at comparable cost, you will have to find ways that are more efficient. Technology and innovation is how you do that. 

Gives you a competitive advantage over companies who don’t embrace innovation  If companies don’t accept change, there’s a strong possibility they'll be left behind when the rest of the world embraces it. The Covid-19 Pandemic tested companies that didn’t previously embrace innovation and new technologies. If companies didn’t already have virtual options in place, they had to implement them on a whim, falling behind those companies who already did. Companies that embraced innovation had a headstart on the technologies that were necessary to survive in the new environment which gave them a temporary competitive advantage over their competitors who didn’t. At Ultra Shine, they are always on the lookout for new innovations that can offer more and benefit their customers, helping to give them an upper hand.  These are just a few of the key benefits Ultra Shine has found when they turned to innovation and new technologies to maximize the value they bring and increase efficiency in the workplace. We’re sure you will find it to be worth it, not only for your customers, but for your business as a whole.