For small and medium sized businesses there is a very difficult balance on having too many or too few staff to undertake the work, but it is also important to consider the understanding of the whole company within your team strategy so you don’t allow your customers to be impacted by a ‘gap’ in knowledge. These 2 issues can lead to a number of problems for you….

• People only do 1 task with no cross training in place, so they knew who to pass the query to for which buzz words, but hadn’t got a clue what happened before or after their step in the process.
• No one understood the implications of what they did against the rest of the business, so for example whist they were quick to process 20 items of post, the fact that they didn’t then record it clearly meant the person undertaking the next action could not identify what had happened.

This can lead to a difficult situation when customers called to discuss an item that ‘Jo’ had spoken to them about, but ‘Jo’ is on holiday, the query cannot be answered & the next steps were unknown by those in the office because ‘Jo’ had always done it.  But what happens when the business finds Jo under that ‘proverbial bus’.

Within any department, and also between departments it is ideal to ensure everyone understands the nature of tasks done and there is a good cross training ethos, especially in a small department / business.

Without that strong understanding ………it will lead to complaints and repeat / duplicate work in house.

With a full understanding……….there will be less complaints and you will find that once people understand knock on implications of their actions, they will also come up with ideas as to how they can work together better .

This will open the communication channels across the business ultimately leading to enhanced customer service and a great reputation which is what we all strive for within our own industry.