Inspecting and Reporting Sign Outages

Anyone responsible for facilitating exterior sign repairs at multiple locations knows that you will have numerous signs that need service at any given time. So, what's the key to staying on top of maintaining these critical branding assets? A consistent and regularly scheduled reporting process.

It's often common practice to have this responsibility fall on the local store manager. While that can be a good thing, those managers often leave the premises before dark, unaware of any sign outage. That leaves your store personnel to report any outages - if they even get reported at all. This lack of cohesive inspecting and reporting results in signs that can be out for weeks – or months, hurting your brand image.

Another negative result of neglecting to report outages is the need to repair many signs in one month, putting your budget off kilter instead of spreading these repairs out over time as they occur.

You might consider outsourcing this task to a vendor, whereby night inspections are performed monthly. That company is then responsible for visually inspecting each site and reporting all outages. Repair orders are submitted from the report results, streamlining this task and removing the responsibility from your staff. They can also provide detailed tracking, reporting, and a breakdown of each location's repair costs.

Ultimately, the bottom line is this: To manage sign repair at multiple locations best, create an inspection and reporting schedule and stick to it. Whether you outsource it or assign one, or multiple people at each location within your organization, is up to you. The key is consistency.