Overflowing task lists and relentless schedules might have you pondering the idea of expanding your team. But, before you dial up the recruiter, consider another solution: Improving team communication.
Effective communication is a superpower when it comes to running your business. And when wielded, it can boost efficiencies and save a ton of time. Seriously, imagine quadrupling your team’s output. Here are four ways to make it happen:
How-to Guide: 4 Ways to Run an Efficient Small Business
DownloadTidy Up Your Team’s Inbox
Fielding customer questions, project requests and follow ups from all corners of the internet — plus calls and walk-ins, too — could easily be a full-time job. But you don’t need a new hire to get the chaos under control.
Stop letting your team waste precious time and brain power sifting through emails and messages looking for the most recent communication from a customer. Instead, consider funneling messages into one inbox — and storing them in chronological order.
Say what?
With an app like Thryv® Command Center, you’ll bring all your customer messages and touch points into one place. And while other platforms say they can do this, what they don’t do is seamlessly arranges those messages into a chronological conversation for each customer.
This doesn’t just help you and your team respond quicker; it helps organize your projects, too.
For instance, no more pausing to recall whether the client’s paint selection was communicated via email or text. A quick search through your conversation history and your crew will have their answer.
All that time spent searching can now be dedicated to more important tasks.
Stop Waiting Around
No-show appointments can have a major impact on your revenue. And the last thing you want is your team waiting around all day for someone who forgot about their appointment.
Here’s how improved communication and a sprinkle of automation magic can transform lost hours and missed appointments into peak productivity.
By automating appointment confirmations and reminders, you can ensure that your job is top-of-mind for all your customers. By reminding them a few days before their appointment, if they cancel your team has time to fill the slot. No lost hours here.
But automation isn’t just for appointment reminders. For example:
- Set up payment requests so your team doesn’t have to take on the role of debt collector.
- Help boost your teams reputation with automations review request.
- Keep their schedule full with reminders for customers to book their next appointment.
All these automations tackle tasks weighing your team down giving them more time to provide the service and skill your small business is known for.
Power Up Progress with TeamChat
One of the biggest ways to let your team wow you with their work is by making sure they have all the information they need to get the job done. And by improving internal communication, you can unlock more productivity hours every day.
Using a team collaboration tool, like TeamChat, makes distribution of everything from company updates to project details efficient and effective.
Take a common scenario: Instead of sending piecemeal messages to various employees about a task, create a dedicated channel in TeamChat. This ensures that your team isn’t wasting time trying to figure out, for instance, the lock box code for your next renovation project.
But it’s more than just saving a few minutes here and there. When you give your team the complete picture, projects gain momentum.
For instance, when your team finishes up a task, they can send a picture to the channel, updating everyone in real time of their progress. This way the next step can begin immediately, helping work get done fastest.
Double Trouble! Reduce Redundancies with Improved Communication
Maintaining open communication offers more benefits than just amplifying efficiency; it serves as a safeguard against unnecessary overlaps in tasks.
This kind of redundancy, especially in small businesses, can be a significant drain on resources, making your small team feel even smaller.
The last thing you want is two team members unknowingly work on the same task. This isn’t just about the duplicated effort, it’s about the lost opportunity where they could have been handling different parts of a project.
Clear communication ensures everyone knows their roles and responsibilities. Without it, two employees could feel like one. And that’s the opposite of what you’re looking for.
Team of 1 or Team of 4? The Choice is Yours
As a business owner you don’t want to expand your headcount if you don’t need to. This is why it’s important to see where time is being wasted in your business and fix it.
Effective communication enables your team to improve customer relationships, stay on task and reduce wasted hours in their day. This type of productivity boost can rival that of four people working without clear communication.
The Guide to Running an Efficient Small Business
We’re sharing our expert tips to help you boost productivity, eliminate time-wasting tasks, and more in this free guide.
