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National HVAC Programs Creates Efficiency & Savings for Restaurants

May 06, 2022

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Managing restaurant buildings is a complex job. From hot kitchens to drafty dining rooms, and heat and moisture-producing equipment, there is a lot happening in a small space. The fact is the overall comfort and environment inside of a restaurant can have as much impact on getting return customers as the food.

Add to that how stretched many facility managers are – sometimes managing as many as 500 sites nationwide – and it’s easy to see how seemingly small tasks, like setting up and automating optimal heating and cooling temperatures and occupancy schedules, can snowball into time-consuming projects.

So much of maintaining an optimal, efficient restaurant comes down to understanding the nuances of environmental factors impacting each location, as well as the unique controls for each building. For example, cooling and heating requirements can be drastically different for your restaurant in Texas versus Minnesota. Likewise, a facility located in a downtown urban setting versus a free-standing suburb restaurant may require a completely different type of HVAC.

This inability to copy/paste your HVAC design plans nationally across multiple restaurants isn’t only applicable to the initial building setup. It’s equally complex when you get to servicing your equipment.

For each location that you operate, you’ll need to build a list of providers who can service the complex needs of all your restaurants. This could be thousands of contacts that you need to find, onboard, and maintain a relationship with just so that you have it on hand if something needs to be fixed. When a critical issue occurs, it’s unlikely that you’ll be prioritized by the local technician, meaning valuable time will be wasted waiting for an initial site visit and diagnosis. Additionally, often a local service technician is unfamiliar with the complex nuances specific to each restaurant and their facilities.

This disjointed approach leads to inefficiencies, added expense, and unnecessary stress for your facility manager. 

What if there was a better way? What if you could have a single, dedicated team that intimately understood each of your restaurant systems throughout your entire portfolio? A team that had knowledge and expertise of how climate nuances across the country impact each building’s infrastructure. Someone who understands the complexity of not just your HVAC, but of all critical equipment throughout the restaurant and how it needs to work together for optimal functionality. And a team of experts that kept a dedicated record of your building controls so that you could make strategic decisions on how to optimize the design of your building controls.

Having a dedicated National Accounts Partnership for restaurant HVAC system design and service
As your restaurant business expands, it makes financial sense to join a National Account. Working as an extension of your facilities team, they are your go-to resource for building controls and services across your portfolio. Having consistency across markets is key and provides significant advantages compared to finding local service technicians in each individual market.

A single dedicated restaurant building performance and service team
When something breaks, time is of the utmost importance. Each minute that you spend finding, calling, and coordinating with a technician means lost revenue. If this is a technician’s first time in your building, they will need to spend precious time familiarizing themselves with your equipment and infrastructure. 

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Having a dedicated partner means there is one single number to call no matter what the issue is across your building portfolio – nationwide. And the person on the other end of the call is already familiar with your equipment and infrastructure. At Trane, our services team is reachable by phone 24/7/365 with calls often being answered within 28 seconds and technicians typically being dispatched within two hours. The technician arrives armed with background on what equipment you’re using, any nuances associated with its setup, past maintenance logs, and more. This cuts down on valuable time to diagnose the issue and determine the right solution to get you back up and operating. This uptime is critical, since every second your restaurant in not operational you are losing revenue and customer satisfaction.

Additionally, when onboarding a new National Account, we work together to determine appropriate enterprise service guidelines based on your business needs. This means we have a previously agreed upon commitments for response times, costs, and more.

Once a fix is identified, our customer service is just getting started. Costs are fixed and transparent, so you don’t have to negotiate pricing during your time of crisis when you are vulnerable to unnecessary nickel and diming. The technician completing the repair is an expert on the equipment, as well as how small changes can have ripple effects on other areas of the restaurant.

This not only reduces the stress on your facility manager but can also help you realize massive savings over the long run.

Designing a building to optimize costs and efficiency
When you sign on as a National Accounts Partner, you get a dedicated team of experts to review the setup of each building and make a plan for how to optimize it going forward. We dive into things like:

  • Equipment currently in use and expected lifespan for each piece
  • Base design load profile for each building
  • Design financial analysis for each building
  • Overall air balance
  • Current and optimal kitchen, serving, and dining area comfort levels

We then build a customized plan for which buildings to prioritize when making proactive updates to achieve maximum energy and cost savings. Realizing savings in your restaurant is about more than just what air conditioning unit you use; it’s understanding how all heating, cooling, and ventilation work together for your unique space in your unique environment.

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Often, during this onboarding, we’ll identify problems that can be easily solved for immediate savings. For example, when an HVAC system is not designed, installed, or maintained properly, it can lead to many problems. These problems can often be very evident, as is the case with extreme condensation, or an uncomfortable space. Or less visible, but equally important problems such as short cycling equipment, dirty filters, lack of make-up air and many others. 

Having a dedicated service partner who can assist with building design and maintenance across all buildings within your portfolio can bring immediate peace of mind and long-term savings to your restaurant business. At Trane we deliver results through local support with:

  • 250 service offices in the U.S.
  • 30+ equipment rental locations across North America
  • 2,750 factory-trained and authorized service professionals
  • 1,300 engineers worldwide; 700 LEED accredited

Learn how you can extend your team with a Trane National Account Partnership today. 

Kasey Boxleitner

About the author
Keri Taylor, Director of National Account Services

Keri serves as Director of National Accounts Services for Trane, headquartered for North America in Davidson, NC. Trane®, a brand of Trane Technologies, is a world leader in climate solutions. Keri is responsible for growing, managing, and facilitating services solutions for large National Accounts clients across North America. Additionally, she develops national partnerships to expand, engage, and promote Trane’s customer-focused products and services. She has held several roles at Trane including the Director of Strategic Sales for CRE (Commercial Real Estate) and as the vertical market leader for CRE and helps guide product development and innovation for the industry. Keri has been with Trane/Ingersoll Rand since 2011 and has had a significant impact in helping achieve its goals in the CRE & Key Accounts Service Segment and continues to be recognized as a leader across all segments of Trane Technologies.

Keri Taylor is also an active member of the Building Owners & Managers Association (BOMA) International’s Association, BOMA Fellow, International Community Service Committee Chair and an active industry thought leader, speaker, and participant on many of BOMA’s regional and international committees. She has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing and Management from the University of Kentucky’s Business school and is an Alpha Omicron Pi alum.