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Robin Hamamy

We are a multi-site/location retail facility service and maintenance vendor partner. We provide needed facility services to retailers who have multiple locations but with a similar footprint that requires standardized demand repairs and or regular scheduled periodic maintenance needs completed. Our values encompass providing honest and cost-effective repairs and maintenance to our retail and property management partners, using ethically sourced labour, materials, and supplies. We use a healthy mix of employee teams and licensed sub-trades. We attempt to go above and beyond client expectations with every service interaction. Our mission is to be a competent and useful asset to our clients and support them to be as successful as possible in their respective markets.

Tell us about yourself?

I started my work experience in electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and various aspects of construction and renovation, like flooring and cabinetry/millwork. Along the way, I spent many years selling and marketing supplies and equipment, learning to sell customers what they needed as opposed to what made me the most commissions. Then I returned to the service industry and eventually joined Clean Scene, where I began humbly moving up the ranks. Joining the team at Clean Scene was an opportunity to use my acquired skills to help grow and position a company that needed the experience and depth of knowledge that I had acquired over my career

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

This was COVID-19 time, which really impacted the retail industry and is still impacting them due to the change in many of our shopping experience choices. Although we were able to continue to provide services uninterrupted, it was a challenge due to the difficulty in obtaining materials that were in short supply, as well as gaining access to remote locations, malls, and office buildings, not to mention dealing with curfews, etc. Let’s just say we will be better prepared to face the next critical challenge that will inevitably arise.

What problem does your business solve?

Single source economy for clients with one or more properties. Precision on time work deployment across properties. Quick resolution to issues reported and the ability to provide 24-hour emergency service when needed.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

The inspiration for Clean Scene initially was to fill a need for a major multi-site retailer in Canada. We were tasked with an initial group of 16 stores, passed the test phase, and then moved across Canada into another 470 properties. From there, it was essentially organic as people within our existing clients moved around and remembered Clean Scene when the need presented itself. Often it was a name dropped to a colleague in the industry that brought awareness of our core competencies. There are challenges for multi-location retailers with properties across Canada or even in local geography. We reduce the complexity because we have experience in this environment. Keeping track of the work required and seeing the tasks through to completion and within budget is what every organization needs help with, especially facility teams who are often remote from the work site location.

What is your magic sauce?

Our motto is Clean, Simple, and Efficient. No secret, just keep it simple. No 11 herbs and spices, just salt and pepper. Our goal is to unravel the complexity inherent in service provisioning and tie things up in a neat, clean, and tidy package. We have a team of dedicated schedulers, entitled “Customer Fulfillment Specialists” (CFS), that marry the right vendor for the task at hand and work with the location to get work completed by arrangement.

Anyone, either in or out of the industry, can easily understand the challenge of how issues are reported up the chain. Often local staff with limited understanding of the technical issues involved with a given service issue report these issues incoherently. It is our CFS’s job to get to the bottom of it in order to be able to issue work tickets that are accurate and comprehensive. CFS manage, schedule, follow up, and ensure completion or “fulfillment” is achieved. And we have done this many times over on a daily, monthly, and weekly basis year in and year out since 1999.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

To continue to expand our business coverage area, which has involved moving into the U.S. in the past five years. To increase our coverage in remote areas by partnering with competent service providers in these areas. We don’t plan on stopping there as many of our clients have a presence in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. The world has become much smaller over the course of the last many decades, and we plan on taking advantage of that.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

Finding and training competent, hard-working internal and external team members, supervisors, as well as tradespeople. This has required us to pursue innovative avenues to locate and onboard the best of the best. By using social media and other modern mediums of finding and vetting the best people for the jobs, we ensure our continued growth.

How can people get involved?

Any multisite facility managers who are reading this interview and recognize what we bring to the table, and if we have struck a chord of common purpose with you, reach out to us thru our website, www.clean-scene.ca/contact. Myself or one of our CFS team will work with you to help Clean up, simply and efficiently, your Scene and address any problem areas that you or your teams are dealing with.