Is Email is holding back your business? There are alternatives.
Email has some important drawbacks. Email users, in the course of 'getting things done' go about their business in highly erratic ways. From one user to the other, from one job to the next, work is completed in a very inconsistent manner. This means that efficiencies gained from the division of labour and process analysis are not available and all too often we find than menial tasks are completed by overqualified and expensive resources.
Important information captured along the way has a tendency to remain on the email rather than being stored in a centralised location for easy access by other colleagues at a later date. Down the track, a customer is then asked the same questions over and over again which in turn can lead to customer dissatisfaction and perhaps eventually the loss of a customer.
email systems also have no way to measure the performance of the operators. Simple metrics to enable your business are not available when work is allocated over email. Examples of such metrics could be average order time, workload balancing, and the number of stuck orders.
Are there solutions to these problems?
A Business Process Management (BPM) or Workflow solution can counter these problems by enforcing and measuring processes, based on the roles and skills of the users. Information captured in these systems can be stored for reuse and easy access by work colleagues at a later date. The information can also be integrated with other systems such as an ERP or accounting package. These solutions promote a better understanding of the processes, which in turn promotes consistency and the ability to automate processes.
These technologies are no doubt better designed for the allocation of work than the decades old email platform, so why is email still so widely used? As we have already mentioned email can be addictive which means that the habit can be hard to break, but there is another important reason to explore. Previously, these systems have attracted lengthy development cycles and a large price tag. People have the perception that customised workflow system are too expensive or difficult to set up, but is this really the case?
Advances in technology means that workflow systems can now implemented quickly and cost effectively. Solutions can be implemented in days or weeks rather than months or years. The payback is often staggering with massive jumps in customer service satisfaction, efficiency and cost savings.
Our advice implement a cost effective workflow solution and promote a culture of efficiency and process centric thinking.