Protect your business from claims by implementing simple and effective workflows in your business
Every business that operates effectively implements workflows. A workflow is a system for managing repetitive processes and tasks which occur in a particular order. The benefit of a workflow is your generate routines for you and your team that means each process in your business is carried out in a consistent manner. This prevents some jobs following one process and others following another depending on where you are, how busy you are and more. It helps you maintain a minimum level of quality and ensures you don’t miss anything whether it’s a admin process or something you’re doing on site.
Documenting this also helps you scale more effectively. New team members can easily read through your guides helping them to understand what must be done when and how it should be done. You can add some degree of flexibility but the point is it ensures everything gets done and when it should.
Sales work flows
How do you deal with a new lead when it comes in? Do you have a standard process for dealing with every lead or do you simply react? If the latter, you are missing out on opportunities to maximise your sales conversions. By using a CRM, you can standardise a workflow for every lead. Once added to your system it can send an initial email to provide information about your service. You can log any notes from calls or call attempts and set a date to follow up when the customer is likely to be ready. You can also set messages to automatically follow up with older leads that haven’t booked with you.
It’s unlikely you’ll remember to follow up with a lead at the right time or have time to follow up with older leads when you’re busy. You have a choice. To ignore leads you’ve already spoken with once or recognise their value and potential and put in processes to maximise your opportunity to convert them. You are trying to create opportunities to engage with them again and an automated message at the right time can offer a new chance to speak on the phone with you instead of with a competitor.
Admin work flows
There is a lot of admin in the process of booking in a survey. From quoting, to following up, to sending terms, to chasing terms, to requesting payments and sending invoices to providing updates throughout the job. A lot of these processes require rekeying the same data multiple times, keeping track of each record and producing and filing documents. By creating a workflow, you prevent one stage being missed before you move on to the next reducing the risk of missing something.
For example, don’t book in a job until a customer has signed terms and then paid. You remove the risk of forgetting to get signed terms before any work is carried out and also you reduce the chance to a customer cancelling and going elsewhere because they weren’t fully committed. If you’re customer doesn’t want to do that, they’re not fully convinced of your service and a potential time waster.
By automating these work flows you also cut out a significant amount of time lost on admin which you can reinvest in talking with customers, but also cut the risk of making data entry errors.
Work flow on site
This is the best way to ensure you capture every part of the property for writing up a good report. Darting from place to place as you find something and not having a set routine is the best way to miss something. This could be photo evidence of a room so you can triple check things back in the office or even leaving a tool on site in the mayhem. You should ensure you have a routine that works for you from pulling up to packing up and leaving. This will mean you can calmly go around the property leaving confident you have everything you need.
For added peace of mind you can take a quick video recording of each room. This will ensure you have evidence of every part of each room when referring back to the job and not risk having any missing angles of a property to review. These can also be embedded into reports for a better explanation of each issue found.
Report write up and sign off workflow
Do you complete a report and send it straight out? Or do you have a workflow to first cross check any customer requests that were made as well as spelling and grammar to make sure that the report you’re sending answers all the smaller details the customer was concerned about? If you miss that step you can guarantee the customer will be left feeling their initial concerns weren’t properly reviewed when out on site.
Simple steps added into a process help you to maximise the chance you deliver the best outcome for each customer.
Follow up workflow
Of course, this isn’t always easy. You’re busy, new enquiries are coming in and other admin needs to be sorted. There are two solutions. Workflows give you a routine. You might make it a daily habit to follow up on returning to the office with any customers that you sent a report out 1-2 days ago. You can also automate a follow up as customers won’t always be free when you call. This can be used to send an email / SMS after a few days to see if the customer has any questions you can help with or if they’d be happy to leave a review.
Do you wait for customers to get in touch or do you proactively reach out to them to see if they had any questions? After all, a customer might not realise they can get in touch with any questions. It might seem obvious, but sometimes it’s the simple things that get missed.
It’s a simple step but built into a routine or automation is easy to implement and is the difference between consistent 4 star and a 5 star reviews.
Conclusion
Workflows provide structure and routines. Routines ensure you are methodical and consistent with everything you do. This offers key benefits:
- You’re much more relaxed day to day
- You can clearly see which steps can be refined further via automation or process tweaks
- Your customers receive a much more consistent and improved experience
- Your team are more confident with what they are doing
- You minimise the risk of claims because you know everything is checked and documented
- You can increase sales through more streamlined touch points and better reviews
If you haven’t already, plan in time to review all of your processes. Start with the processes where you are feeling up against it and see what you can change to smoothen your day. This will help you feel more relaxed, and in control. Review your workflows periodically. Your business changes over time and your processes will need to as well to reflect this.