Relay is driving efficiency, better communication and lower ticket times

After making the switch from old school two-way radios to Relay, Tai Davis’ team at Fayetteville State University has been getting work done faster and having more fun doing it.

“We’re able to improve our customer service, the satisfaction of customers, because we’re responding so quickly, which in turn…it sounds crazy…we’re not seeing as many work orders because of that,” said Davis.

As Director of Facility Operations at FSU, Davis and his crew deal with all sorts of maintenance issues from flooding to repairing the air conditioning to replacing faulty wiring. It’s all in a day’s work in keeping North Carolina’s second oldest state funded institution up and running. Work, Davis says, is now easier thanks to Relay.

“Our operations have improved since we started using Relay, to be honest,” said Davis. “It has enhanced our communications across our group. It has helped us increase our response time. We’re able to close out work orders faster now than we ever could before because of the communication.”

Before Relay, Davis estimates that duplicate service orders accounted for about 20% of the work orders sent his team’s way. Since replacing their two-way radios with Relay, calls for repeat service are way down because of the enhanced communication.

“We’re proactively engaging and we’re responding so quickly so you’re not getting repetitive work orders,” said Davis. “So now, instead of 500, where maybe 100 or so are for these duplicate work orders, we’re seeing that number go down.”

That’s just one of the ways Relay has helped save the facility operations department at Fayetteville State time and money.

”Most definitely we’re saving money,” said Davis. “We can outfit more technicians, more people with devices, communication devices than we ever could using cell phones or walkie-talkies.”

One of the best benefits for Davis and his team is something that money can’t buy – the improvement he’s seen in his team’s morale. They’re working efficiently while having fun.

”I hear the chatter, because I’m on all the channels. And they’re engaging,“ said Davis. ”They’re telling jokes, they’re asking for assistance. So it’s the morale. They’re building morale at the same time as communicating effectively. And that’s what I like.“

We had the same problems I know a lot of other folks are having with communication devices. We gave Relay a try…It’s cost effective and it grew on us.

It’s all a far cry from the days when FSU used radios and cell phones. Davis remembers the frustration his staff dealt with in the days before they had Relay; they were constantly annoyed with heavy walkie-talkies, dropped calls, and dead spots with their phones.

”Operations on campus for us before Relay were a bit sporadic and hectic. We had walkie-talkies at the time, but they would break, cumbersome for the staff to use, and they really didn’t like carrying them,“ said Davis.

With all the tools offered to track, monitor, and communicate with his team, Davis is finding all the different ways he can use Relay to efficiently get their work done.

”The Dashboard is awesome,“ said Davis. ”I use it to send out messages to our team, whether it’s ‘hey, we got lunch today coming at 11:00’ or ‘remember to turn in your timesheets’ and that goes out to the group. It also enables us to track the location of a specific technician and see if they’re close to a job or what’s going on.“

After seeing what Relay has done for efficiency on campus and morale amongst his team all for less money than walkie-talkies, Davis believes Relay is the right solution for any team’s communication needs.

”Give Relay a try,“ urged Davis. ”We had the same problems I know a lot of other folks are having with communication devices. We gave Relay a try…It’s cost effective and it grew on us. And we loved it. So I’d say give it a try. You won’t be upset.“