AuditMate partners with clients to radically simplify elevator management through data.

“AuditMate was born out of a fiery passion and belief that building owners don’t need to be elevator experts; they just need to be provided with honest, fair information,” AuditMate Founder and CEO Ashleigh Wilson said. Wilson grew up with strong family ties to the elevator industry and joined it herself in her 20s. Achieving early success at a major OEM, Wilson found herself conducting global research, reporting to the international C-suite and being mentored by the U.S. CEO. Guided by her vision of a customer-first, common-sense approach to business, Wilson chose to leave the corporate path set before her to make her own mark on the world. 

While she was not in the industry, Wilson connected with AuditMate Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Andrea Arceneaux. “We met at a party and sat in the corner talking about elevators,” Wilson said. As a commercial real estate agent and property manager, Arceneaux had firsthand knowledge of the challenges of managing a building’s elevators.

“Managing elevators was a continuous pain point, especially since we didn’t have a platform to manage performance and costs across our portfolios,” Arceneaux mentioned.

Wilson and Arceneaux set out to develop a solution: the AuditMate Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. Together, they built out data points on sticky notes and wrote the logic that would become the software it is today. Wilson explains:

“We pull in maintenance records via an API (Application Programming Interface) online portal or paper records, and we audit those records in accordance with the maintenance contract. The SaaS product is auditing all vendor records on more than 400 data points to ensure the vendor is doing enough maintenance and the right maintenance. We also work with elevator companies in presenting capital plans to the client. A lot of what we do is translate elevators to building owners.”

The fact that Arceneaux had a property and technology background (not an elevator background, initially) helped in building the product and avoiding too many technical elevator terms — if she didn’t immediately understand the data, neither would the customers. “It’s really important to have a place where our customers can go to start to understand in a simple, action-based way,” said Arceneaux. “The AuditMate solution provides a way of looking at maintenance contracts and records in a way building managers have never seen before.” Wilson said: 

“Forty maintenance visits looks like a lot, but when you see you have 120 elevators, and you only got 40 visits, it looks a lot different. Being really user-friendly in how we display data is our main priority.”

The biggest problem AuditMate sees in vendor/client relations is a breakdown of communications around expectations. The company seeks to partner with elevator companies to make contract management easier for everyone.

 Wilson said:

“A common misconnection is that we are trying to get more services from the elevator company than what is required in the contract, and that’s absolutely not what we are trying to do. We want to help vendors sell more preventive work and upgrades and provide data to their clients. At the end of the day, when clients are notified of what’s happening along the way, they are more satisfied and have higher NPS (Net Promoter Scores), even if the vendor is late.” 

With company values including heart-centered courage and being excellent to one another, Wilson and her team believe in putting people before profit. “We are of the mind that when you treat people right, then profit follows organically,” Wilson said. “We want to empower our team, the clients and the vendors to really do well by doing right — by doing good business.” 

AuditMate’s people-first approach extends to its internal operations. The company is made up of a close-knit — but geographically widespread — team of about 20 members, which they call Mates. “We’ve really grown as a company full of people who have left organizations because they’ve wanted to be a part of impacting the world with kindness,” Wilson commented. AuditMate’s main office is in Manhattan, NY, with five Mates working in person. Across the company, Mates can be found from Alaska to the U.S. East Coast, as well as internationally. 

A monthly leadership meeting and quarterly team meetings keep everyone up to date on each department’s projects and progress. Every Friday, the group meets up online for an informal “AuditMate Lounge,” an opportunity for colleagues to talk about anything besides work. “It’s about supporting each other and creating a free space to hang out and check in on one another,” Arceneaux said.

The AuditMate team believes in giving back to the areas in which they live and work. “We can give money, which is important and needed sometimes, but more than that, we want to connect with people: to go in the streets, do service work and be a part of the community,” Wilson said. The company donates services to organizations, centers and housing projects that wouldn’t be able to afford an elevator consultant. AuditMate has provided software, invoice review and other advice to nonprofits.  

Wilson’s long-term vision for the company includes taking AuditMate international and expanding into other verticals. Clients ask repeatedly if they can provide the same services for HVAC and other vendors. Wilson says that elevators, contracts and maintenance transparency will remain the company’s focus. As an intermediary between clients and vendors, AuditMate works to ensure that “everyone is on the same page” and seen in the best light. 

Note: This article was originally published on Elevator World. Please note that content may be copyrighted by Elevator World. If you have any questions, please contact Elevator World directly.

Link to original article on Elevator World: https://elevatorworld.com/article/maintenance-made-easy/