Have you ever got a call from a client and not been able to help out because the person handling that client was on leave?
In the process of setting up our payment gateway and banking here at Kitovu I’ve been communicating with one of Australia’s “Top 4” banks. I’m sure you are familiar with the process – forms, emails, phone calls, more forms, ID, visits to the bank, more forms, more ID, more emails.
Well, part of the ‘onboarding’ process involved a phone interview. I had an email conversation with a robot to schedule the call at an exact time with a 10 minute window for the call. I made sure my diary was clear and patiently waited for the call. But the phone did not ring.
About 45min later I decided to call the bank and locate the caller. I called the usual default 1300 number as I had no specific details and after about 10 minutes of conversations with many people I finally located the right department and let them know what had happened. After a little more confusion they finally worked out that the person meant to handle my call was on sick leave for the day and they had no way of looking at that person’s diary, thus no way to know what tasks were meant to be done.
If only they were using Kitovu :) – well I’m not expecting a national bank to sign up this week but the point is that this is such a typical scenario that can affect all businesses from the smallest to the largest. Staff will always go on leave unexpectedly and it is vital that a task management system be in place that not only keeps track of team tasks but makes it possible and easy for team members to see each other’s tasks.
Good teams work together and good team members help each other out often. Your task management system must make it easy for people to know what others are doing so they can offer suggestions, tips, a helping hand. And in the case of unexpected staff leave, they can take over critical tasks to keep customers happy and projects rolling along.