Consistently Good Service Rewarded

We won’t deny that many of our blogs this year have been a bit glum. 2026 has been a hard year for catering business with energy, tax and food shocks, as well as consumers tackling the costs of living crisis. Today, we’re delighted to share some good news about AC Services Southern.

Rational Service Partner Town Hall

Each year Rational gathers together its 40 UK Service Partners in a Town Hall event. This was on 10th September at Pendley Manor near Tring. It’s partly a free-flowing discussion of the issues, opportunities and plans for Rational overall and in the UK. It is also the event for the annual awards.

Helen Hagger, AC Services MD said “In 2025, we won the Admin Team of the Year and were runners-up for the overall Rational Service Partner. It’s brilliant that in 2026, the service we provide to our catering colleagues is recognised by winning the Rational Service Partner of the Year 2026. We last won this in 2023, so it’s good to see our consistent responsive approach to the evolving needs of the business recognised.”

Annual Service Check

Back in July, we had our annual service check aka audit. Our new Regional Technical Manager Ian McDonnell carried out the audit along with Oscar Saavedra, the National Service Director. For us somewhat more nerve-wracking than an annual oven service by our engineers!

The audit includes:

• Extensive stock checks for parts availability. Both in the warehouse and on the engineers’ vans to keep downtime to the minimum.
• Ensuring we have all the correct testing equipment and have it fully calibrated. This helps analyse faults quickly and accurately, when coupled with the review of Engineer training completed.
• Specific assessment of performance with warranty jobs, first-time fix and attendance within 24 hours.
• Office team performance, such as how quickly we complete our reports to Rational that also monitor service KPIs year-round.
• Customer surveys and feedback complete the all-round assessment.

It proved that AC Services’ coupling of good responsive systems and training with a friendly customer-focused approach is recognised by our peers. This gives our catering business clients in the South West and Wales, the best opportunity to thrive with well-maintained Rational ovens. So good news for all!

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