As someone who has run a remote company for the past 7 years, it was pretty wild to watch every company switch to remote work in early March of this year. I was extremely interested to see how our customers traversed that transition.
Most of them handled it in stride and have excelled through this challenging time. But there is a specific customer of ours that I'm not sure could have survived if they hadn't done the hard work of automating their back office workflows in 2019.
What is Back Office Automation?
Just to clear the air and make sure we are on the same page when I say, "Back Office Automation." Here's a basic definition I found by Googling:
Back office refers to business activities that take place behind the scenes and serve more of a supportive function to the business. You can automate activities in this area of your business to improve efficiency and minimize costs.
This can include a multitude of tasks, but generally, our focus is around the workflow of getting work in, scheduling it to be done, and once the job is complete, billing the customer. And in most companies, this is still a very manual process with a lot of humans involved. And a place ripe for efficiency gains through simple systems we can put in place.
Case Study
The scene we saw when we visited Carlton's office was something that we have seen many times before. Carlton ran an industrial service company. They had 30-40 technicians spread out across the region doing work at different customer locations. Their whole process was a mix of paper and digital, but the back office workflow was killing them.
Work was getting done in the field, but once the work orders made their way back to the office for processing, it was a total nightmare. Some work came in via email, other was faxed in, and some handed in at the end of each day. Needless to say, it was managed chaos.
And most importantly, in the context of 2020, without access to the office by multiple team members, their business would not have been able to operate.
Automating their Office Workflow
Using our finely tuned approach, we built a roadmap that would streamline and consolidate the back office workflow. Our primary focus was on these 4 points:
- Eliminate Lost Work
- Make it impossible for any work to slip through the cracks. Never again allow a customer's request to go unfulfilled and completed work not be billed promptly.
- Digital Transformation (AKA: Burn the Paperwork)
- Altogether remove paperwork from their workflow. From the field to the office, all of it had to go.
- Real-Time Reporting
- Give the whole organization the real-time data they needed to be more strategic and agile.
- Establish an Audit Trail
- To find the source of problems as they arise and adjust, you have to be able to establish a chain of custody.
After a few months of work, we rolled out a new system that was custom-tailored to their specific workflow, which allows them to collect and manage all of the data floating around their business. The toolset consisted of a custom iOS app, an admin web portal, and some robust reporting tools. By mid-2019, their whole organization was up and running, and day to day around the office began to become more focused and less chaotic.
The Results
Fewer Phone Calls and Texts
Since all of their job information lived in one place, everyone was better informed throughout the company. There were far fewer conversations, clarifications, and questions. Even their customers noticed that when they called with a request, it was faster than before. Mega-win!
Faster Invoice and Payment
We tracked this metric during our Roadmapping engagement because I knew we could improve it significantly. But the average time from a job being completed to invoicing the customer was 5-7 business days. In Q4 of 2019, they reduced that time to less than 48 hours. Which, in turn, meant they were receiving payment that much faster.
The Cream Rose to the Top
Now that they were getting real-time data back from the field. The top performers on the team were very obvious. They were able to isolate each employee's performance and further incentivize them to step up to the plate. In general, the management team was empowered by the data they were now gathering.
COVID Impact
A few days after everything went haywire in mid-March, I called Carlton to check in and see how things were going for them. Compared to other customers, he seemed way more optimistic than most folks I talked with. Sure he was very concerned about the massive public health crisis that we were working through globally. But for his business, he felt confident.
Their business was classified as essential business, so with a few changes to their protocols and some PPE, their employees could continue their work.
"Our office staff is all working from home. We got them set up a couple days ago, activated Microsoft Teams, and forwarded our calls to our respective houses. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's been amazing."
A month or so later, I followed up with Carlton. He thanked our team for the work that we had done in 2019.
"I really want to thank you guys. If we were still operating like we were before you guys came around. I'm not sure we would still be in business."
Wow! What a compliment.
There wasn't any secret sauce that we brought to his company. One of our core principles is that technology should empower you to do your best work, not get in the way. This is a perfect case study in that principle alone. All we did was help them make the most of the team they had in place.
The Power of Back Office Automation
Back office automation, as you've seen here, is a perfect example of how it can empower your team to keep working when times get tough. While we all hope that we never experience a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic again. This is your chance to reassess and find ways to bring more efficiency to your business.