How Fexa Uses AI to Transform Facilities Management

Summary

In this episode, Beth Mooney, Director of Customer Product Marketing at Fexa, shares insights on connecting product, customer insight, and go-to-market strategies to drive AI adoption in facilities management. Discover how Fexa's flexible platform and AI integration help enterprises manage operations at scale and overcome common challenges.

Takeaways

Fexa's platform is tailored to how businesses operate, not just a one-size-fits-all solution.
Overcoming the fear factor is crucial for AI adoption; use empathy and demonstrate ROI.
Understanding individual customer needs is key to effectively communicating value.
AI is moving fast, and comfort with new technology is the main barrier to overcome.
Success in AI integration is when customers embrace and actively use AI to solve real problems.

Soundbites:

"Lower the barrier by dispelling the fear factor"
"Job titles are being created around AI"
"When people embrace AI, the floodgates open"

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to AI Speed and Guest Background
02:40
Vexa's Unique Approach to Facilities Management
05:24
Understanding Customer Challenges in Facilities Management
07:44
Aligning Product Marketing with Customer Expectations
10:19
The Role of AI in Facilities Management
12:43
Future Outlook and Success Metrics for Vexa

Video

https://youtu.be/40GD2QArmy8

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to AI Speed, the show where AI-powered companies talk about what actually works in the market right now. Business doesn't move at internet speed anymore. It moves at AI speed, and the people who figure out how to turn models into money will own the next decade. I'm Evan J. Chalvin, founder of Luxhammer, and growth partner to high-performing brands. Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by Beth Mooney, Director of Customer Product Marketing at FEXA. Beth sits at a critical intersection inside the business, connecting product, customer insight, and go-to-market strategy. Her work focuses on translating complex operational platforms into messaging that actually resonates with customers and drives adoption, which is especially important in industries like facilities management, where the value is often significant, but not always immediately obvious. Beth, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Thanks so much for having me, Evan.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

So you're operating right at the intersection of product, customer, and marketing. What drew you into that role and what made you focus on connecting those pieces?

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Great question. So I I've spent the last 20 years in the facilities management industry, multifaceted, mostly on the front lines, dealing with customers. I've worked for different types of companies and landed in software roughly seven years ago. The transition to product and customer marketing is something super special to me, having dealt with customers and understanding the technical aspect of the product, the opportunity to be able to tell that story and share best practices. It kind of started organically for me and has really grown into helping with the AI curve as we know it today.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Absolutely. So what makes FEX's approach unique when it comes to managing facilities and operations at scale?

SPEAKER_02 2:17

I think for us, there's a couple things. One, a lot of our backgrounds are in the industry. So we understand the pain. We understand what keeps people up at night. And we approach our roadmap and we approach every problem really from the lens of, you know, how is it going to help the customer? We're looking at things in a very specific way to make sure that we're not just building for software sake or checking a box, if you will. We're really making sure that we solve real customer problems. In addition to that, we're a super flexible platform. So many platforms in the industry will sort of kind of offer a best practice mode and then work through with that customer to accommodate their business rules. FEXA does it completely opposite. We are tailoring to how businesses run and making sure that the system works for them and is able to be tweaked and changed as their business change and growth.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

That's great. So from what you're seeing, what is the core problem your customers are dealing with today?

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Like everyone, do more with less, right? Do it faster, do it cheaper, uh, do more with less. Um, and it's it's not uncommon in the facilities management space, mostly because, you know, we have to pay to keep the lights on. We have to pay to keep a store comfortable and cool for people to stay in and try on clothing or whatnot. So it's it's those same challenges that we're seeing. Uh, and this is where being really ahead of the curve with AI allowed us to incorporate this work, these things right into our workflow and to be able to kind of attack some of those real problems out of the gate. The first problem we jumped on was creation of a work order. At the end of the day, we need it to be quick. Someone needs to say, this is broken or it's too hot, and not have to go through multi-level steps to figure out the ins and outs of how to kind of get that work order in the system to eventually get it to the right, the right contractor.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Absolutely. So, and your role, where are you spending most of your time right now?

SPEAKER_02 4:14

A lot of my time is split. Uh, typical product marketing is kind of split between understanding what's going on in the market, but really listening to our customers. So listening in on calls that our our sales team is having with prospective customers to hear firsthand in their words, what is the pain? Is the pain changing? Is it the same? Listening through with our customer success team and our existing customers to understand what's going on. Uh, and then working really closely with the product team to understand how they're building and how that will impact the end, you know, the customer at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Yeah, absolutely. So, who do you serve best? What's the ideal customer profile that gets the most value from FEXA?

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Sure. We really try to focus on enterprise operators. So these are multi-site businesses. It could be retail, restaurant, convenience store, uh, med-tail, really looking for folks that have complexity among their operation. There are multiple maybe systems or processes or things along those lines that really as they grow and as they scale, they need to make sure that all of that uh information is able to be housed in a place that can grow with them and scale with them. So we really try to partner with folks who are either in a technology space currently and looking to maybe make adjustments and see how things can grow, or folks who are looking for something that can really help them at that next level. Uh, and especially, I would say, curious technical people uh as well who are looking to really incorporate AI into their business.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Yeah. I'm curious what's been your biggest challenge this year in aligning product marketing and customer expectations?

SPEAKER_02 5:54

I think of it oftentimes as uh let's say I had a pet spider, and I know that that spider's not gonna bite, but someone else looks at it and it's gross and it's fuzzy and it has all these legs, right? When we're talking about AI and product to a customer, it's kind of like a big scary spider. So the the most challenging part is to be able to kind of dispel that fear factor. You know, someone can't logic past fear. So to be able to dispel that and kind of lower that barrier of that this is for everyone. And you start somewhere and it grows with you, especially when we talk about AI. From a product standpoint, I think, you know, from an adoption level, we folks jump in, it's an it's a necessary part of their day-to-day to use the product. But when there's change and there's something on top of it, it's really getting past that fear factor to have them embrace it and then be able to see how impactful it truly is.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

And how do you approach that?

SPEAKER_02 6:48

I really use empathy as a filter. So I think just learning that human behavior first, understanding people will be fearful, um, and being honest, you know, this may be hard. This is something new, but here is how your peers are using it, here is how other people are using it, or really tell me what your thoughts are and how could we make it better? So I think as a company in general, you know, people don't believe words, they believe ROI. Uh, they want to understand how it works and how it's been proven to help other folks. So that's a big part of what we're doing is making sure that we document all of those successes along the way and learnings if we come across them too.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Absolutely. So, what would you say makes it difficult to clearly communicate value in a space like facilities and operations?

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Good question. I think, I think there's there's a there's a lot of companies out there, right? There's a lot of different technology, and I think ultimately it's speaking to the right person and understanding what it means to that person specifically. So if we're communicating, we we can't have one generic message, if you will. We've really got to communicate to that person individually. Something that matters to a frontline user, to a store manager is not gonna be the same thing that matters to a CFO. And it's really understanding the nuance to be able to communicate what's important to them to really show that value.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Absolutely. So, from your role, what does success look like over the next year?

SPEAKER_02 8:12

I think for me, it's really making sure that we continue to, we continue to tell the right stories. We're not building AI for AI's sake. We are really solving problems. So for me, it's understanding again, what are those challenges that we need to solve and being able to clearly articulate them. Ultimately, it's seeing our customers embrace AI and seeing them meet those challenges that they have right now of doing more with less and being more efficient. When we see the product helping, when we see them able to take time away from maybe menial processes or manual tasks and be able to do something more strategic or something that's been on the bucket list, if you will, for a long time and they can finally get to get to do that, managing their vendor base and documenting assets that they have wanted to get to, to be able to finally get to that point, I think is truly what success looks like.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Absolutely. What's currently working best in acquiring new customers?

SPEAKER_02 9:07

I think honestly, we we have a nice flavor of, again, we talked about kind of that flexibility aspect. So being super flexible, the rate at which we're able to produce because we we are in tune and because of the Agile Workflow engine that our product is built on. And then again, the ROI. When you hear from your peers that one customer in particular spent years evaluating software and transitioned over and is really excited, not only that they made the move, but about the possibilities ahead of them because they can tweak and adjust and really make the software work with their business needs as they change.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Absolutely. So, what trends are you seeing in facilities management or SaaS or AI that feels real versus hype?

SPEAKER_02 9:53

For a long time, folks, you know, again, going back to that fear factor, for a long time folks were fearful. Uh, they knew they knew they needed AI, but they didn't understand and weren't really sure, and maybe only had a Microsoft co-pilot at their disposal. I would say the conversation is rapidly shifting. Folks now not only understand that they need AI, but we're seeing job titles created around AI throughout all of these organizations. Folks are now embracing AI and know that they need to use it. So now it becomes education of what is good AI? What should AI be doing for me? What questions should I be asking? And that shift has been maybe in the past six months. I look at life, you know, pre-AI and post-AI, and that that's really driving a lot of the change in the conversations that we're having.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Absolutely. And how is AI incorporated into your platform?

SPEAKER_02 10:45

So we've launched a multi-agent platform, and we're looking specifically at, again, the real challenges and the real problems that our users face and attacking them with individual agents that can work together and grow as the platform grows. So we've got uh a work order creation agent live today. We've got additional agents, one that we'll be unveiling at a large trade show in a couple weeks here, and then more in development currently. Our goal is to really have AI sidekicks for every user in the system to be able to, again, level them up so that they're not focusing time on documentation or spreadsheets or things that used to take a long time, and they really can run their business with a level of confidence because the system is giving them the right information at the right time.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

That's great. So if we were to have this conversation again 12 months, what would need to happen for you to feel like it's a big win for FEXA?

SPEAKER_02 11:42

AI is moving so fast, 12 months seems like light years away.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

So I'm sure the what you know, what I think now. Exactly. What I think now would be is gonna be completely different. But we'll have those small Pizza Hut pizzas like they had in Back to the Future.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

I honestly think, again, it's it's just gonna come down to comfortability. And when we get past that fear factor, when people start embracing it and they say, I want in and I want to understand it, once the floodgates are open, that's it. Just like, you know, the first time that you use Claude or you use Chat GPT and you really get past, and then you're like, oh wow, this is this is cool. I I see I see just people getting less fearful and getting more attuned to how it can help them. So for me, success looks like uh these conversations about what's what's next. What else? How else can I use it and what other use cases can we come up with to just really make you know my life better?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Awesome. Well, that's it for today's episode of AI Speed. A huge thank you to Beth Money for sharing her invaluable insights into how FEX is connecting product, customer insight, and go to market to drive real adoption and outcomes. If you're building or leading an AI native company or a service business that uses AI under the hood and you care about revenue adoption and market share, make sure to subscribe to AI Speed. Stay AI operators ship faster, sell smarter, and stay ahead. Thanks for listening. Until next time, keep building, keep selling, and keep moving at AI speed.