Developing and maintaining standard operating procedures: Part One

Aug. 4, 2015
Think about how much easier your business’s daily activities would be if each step, each process, each requirement were clearly identified.

Have you ever thought about how much easier life would be if you knew what came next? Have your employees ever asked you time and again what you want them to do next and in what order? How much of your day is spent answering questions about procedural items that could be answered just as easily by a chart, worksheet or other method that clearly identified the necessary requirements or steps?

Think about how much easier your business’s daily activities would be if each step, each process, each requirement were clearly identified. This is the goal of developing and maintaining a robust series of standard operating procedures in your business, better known as SOPs. They can be a roadmap to easing your business stress by providing the “go-to guide” for your employees to reduce and in some cases eliminate some of the daily questions, unnecessary phone calls and unproductive activity that reduce workplace efficiencies.

Let’s look at one area of opportunity: incoming customer-related phone calls. Take a minute to think about the kinds of customer calls your business receives. Are the calls from customers that are bringing new business into your store? Are they calls from customers asking questions about the repairs to their vehicle? Although they are both customer calls, one is “productive” and one is not and could possibly be eliminated. How? By developing a system that provides customers with updates on the repair processes being performed on their vehicles.

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You can set expectations when the vehicle arrives and the initial contact is made with the customer by identifying their need for updates, the type of update they prefer and the frequency at which they would like to receive the contact. This is the beginning of the SOP for customer contact. Most importantly, it will eliminate the incoming “nonproductive” call to make room for the potential new customer that will bring a new repair prospect into your store.

The process for developing the SOP isn’t as complicated as you might think, but it may take some time initially to go through the development process. What is taking place in the development of an SOP is an establishment of rules, tasks, measurements and follow-up processes that will reduce process waste and needless redundancy. Let’s take a closer look at the customer contact SOP. There is always a need to provide the customer with repair information for any number of reasons. These can range from regular repair updates, to supplements or maybe a delay and delay explanation. We’ve all seen these and proactive discussion where you call the customer is always much better received than when the customer calls and the vehicle isn’t ready and they are “surprised.” To prevent this type of situation, setting up a preplanned call schedule with the customer will avoid incoming calls. So here is the first step in the SOP development for this process:

Identify and confirm customer call-back needs
An explanation to the customer regarding why this is being done shows that you have an interest in their being informed throughout the repair process. This is a key performance measurement in most CSI scores as well as with others who watch your business. When you do this, the customer has the information they require and you’ve eliminated an unnecessary call into the business. Next you will have to identify who will make the update call, and most importantly how to ensure that it is made on schedule, since the expectation has been set with the customer.

Schedule call or notification times, type and frequency
Calendaring the calls using Outlook is very helpful. It provides the caller with a predesignated space in the calendar as well as an audio alert to make the call. It is easiest to make calls as early as possible in the day since they are typically routine. So here’s the next step:

Set a timeframe for completion

Now comes one of the most important aspects of the customer call process, documentation.

Documentation
This is key to informing other store employees that the who, what, where, when and whys were performed, so that if a question surfaces documentation provides answers without disrupting workflow or at least minimizes the disruption.

Setting up a measurement process is also important to ensure that employees assigned with specific tasks are completing them within the SOP requirements. An audit process is an alternative, but a visual indicator may be a much better alternative. Using a visual identifier such as initials in a check box located on a file jacket, or a color indicator for contact calls are a couple of alternative examples.

Measurement
The key is to be consistent and repeatable in your processes so that there becomes an expectation of a specified performance.

1.     Provide detailed repair plan

2.     Identify customer contact requirements (When do they want to be notified?)

3.     Provide options for notification (How it can be done)

4.     Identify customer method of contact (What is their preference?)

5.     When do they want to be notified? (Establish times, dates)

6.     Provide them with their required information (What do they want to know?)

7.     Schedule calls using calendar

8.     Complete documentation

9.     Complete visual identifier

Improving performance or eliminating waste for something as simple or sometimes as complex as a customer call will reduce the time spent reacting to a call. This proactive approach in controlling calls will free up the opportunity for additional business to reach you through your phone and provide you with additional sales potential.

In Part Two, we will examine building SOPs for the production areas.

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