Team Whistle
Team Whistle managed to save a lot of time and money with Cheqroom
Using Cheqroom made us a much more buttoned-up production house.
Whistle Sports is a New York based video production company that makes content for online and social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. They create their own content as well as contract videos for other clients and brands.
Ahead of scheduling conflicts despite the limited equipment supply
Mike McLaughlin, associate producer, helps produce, shoot, and edit content and also manages the equipment inventory.
Team Whistle mainly uses Cheqroom to reserve and rent video equipment for different projects within the company. Mike from Team Whistle: “By tagging each piece of gear, everything is taken into account and specific items of gear can be reserved without fear of overlapping with other projects.”
“The calendar feature is my favorite, it gets us ahead of scheduling conflicts despite the limited equipment supply and enables us to take the necessary steps to outsource equipment when we need to.”
Team Whistle recently started to track the company laptops with Cheqroom as well. “It became a useful tool to keeping an inventory on all of our company’s laptops as well as keeping track of serial numbers, warranties, etc.”
Saving money and an immeasurable amount of time
“Cheqroom has allowed us to keep ahead of scheduling conflicts and to foresee issues down the pipeline. When we know we have 2 projects shooting at the same time, we are able to look at our budgets to see who can afford to rent gear, and give priority to the more important projects. This has saved us money by getting better deals on rentals instead of waiting until the last minute to find gear that we thought we had available.”
It is immeasurable the amount of time that has been saved by using this platform.
In addition to budgetary savings, the tool has also saved Team Whistle a lot of time. “It is immeasurable the amount of time that has been saved by using this platform. I am not being contacted about gear needs as frequently because Cheqroom gives one place where they can find all of their answers as to what is available and when. Instead of vaguely knowing when we want to shoot something, we are able to lock in shoot dates weeks ahead of schedule, knowing that we will have the gear that we need to complete the job.”
We are a much more buttoned-up production house now that we have been using Cheqroom.
Cheqroom was huge in boosting team communication
“Before Cheqroom we used Google Spreadsheets to manage our gear, but to be able to search through our gear online and then know not only do we have 3 of this camera but to be able to check the QR code on a sticker and know exactly which camera you are referring to was huge in boosting communication among our team.”
We no longer have to have meetings to decide who's going to use what gear.
“If multiple people wanted gear at the same time, we would have to hold a meeting to discuss who was taking what gear. For keeping track of gear, I would write down what left the building and have the producer sign a form verifying the checkout. When gear came back, I would use that sheet to verify that everything came back.”
The worst part of our old process was the lack of accountability. If gear went missing it was impossible to say someone lost this specific SD card or this specific battery because we were just keeping track of the number of items going out, not necessarily making sure the exact items came back. When we first began looking for inventory management software our initial findings weren’t what we were looking for. I can’t think of any alternative solution that was truly in the running.”
Mike would recommend anyone facing the same equipment management challenges to “take a look at Cheqroom. For the price and ease of use, you can’t beat it. Especially for internal purposes, this is a very safe, cost-efficient product.”
Start a free trial or get in touch with our team to see how Cheqroom can make your equipment management more efficient.
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