In today’s economic climate, most retail development firms, shopping center landlords, office building owners and especially general commercial construction contractors would be wise to take a step back and ask themselves if they are leaving any money on the table when it comes to new business and servicing their customers.

For example, we’ve been able to enhance our general construction services and stay ahead of commercial construction trends by doing the following for our clients:

1. Listen. Not too long ago, a major retail construction client of ours asked if we had the ability to manage our work with them in an online file-sharing system. While we didn’t offer an online construction management file sharing system at the time, we quickly launched one because it was important to our client and helped us increase our construction services with them.

We then rolled out our paperless project management system to all of our clients, which in turn helped us save more than $150,000 in printing costs alone in its first 18 months of operation – savings we’ve been able to pass along to clients in their overall construction costs.

2. Observe. For our restaurant construction and retail clients, we typically do a walk-through 11 months after the project is complete to make sure everything is as it should be. During these check-ups, we noticed the stores were outsourcing maintenance needs to other firms. So, we created a construction maintenance program.

Who better than the general contractor who built the store to service its maintenance needs? We were even able to offer construction maintenance services they weren’t receiving from other companies, such as an online management tool that allows clients immediate access to their request and service schedule, plus a 24-hour service hotline.

Observing our client’s day-to-day routine helped us find a way to offer them better customer service. Plus, it generated more work for us in our area of expertise.

3. Remind. As you get older, you start to forget things – I know this from experience. So you need to consistently remind people of your capabilities. For example, I’m sure some of you don’t know, or have forgotten, that I’m an architect.

This means not only can Englewood Construction oversee everything from the construction permitting process and managing the subcontractor relationship to physically building a project like a new shopping center development, but we can also be brought in on pre-construction services and managing design build projects.

If fact, one of our upcoming projects for this fall is a design build project that should feature sustainable construction. See, maybe you forgot we have experience in green commercial buildings. Good thing I’m reminding you.

What does this mean for you?

• Listen to your clients and tenants. Have they had to cut back on internal services that you can offer them instead?
• Observe your customers to see if you can offer them procedures or services that will make their business run more efficiently or meet their construction project deadline ahead of time.
• Remind everyone you know of your capabilities and background. Maybe they forgot or maybe they have a new need that your “new found” capabilities can fill.

What are some of your tips to not leaving money on the table
in today’s commercial construction market?  Leave a comment.

www.englewoodconstruction.com