As we seek to elevate ourselves and our businesses out of the surreal fog of the COVID-19 pandemic, we correctly question ‘what is the best way to operate now?’.
You have gone above and beyond to be there for your clients over the last 6 months, now it’s critical to focus on what will make things easier and more efficient in your business.
The first question you should consider is ‘What would save me the most time?’, or even ‘What wastes the most time?’. It is likely that file noting, record keeping and follow up action items are at the top of the list. The good news is that you have some real options in introducing new processes and technology to significantly reduce your time spent on record keeping, whilst increasing the quality of your records.
Utilising technology that digitally captures client conversations within minutes enables you to create 100% accurate file notes based on the actual conversations that occur. You will no longer need to remember what was said or interpret written notes. Your client engagement will improve as you can focus completely on what your clients say. You can effectively manage your work-life balance by reducing the admin time for each client and accessing client notes whenever and wherever they are required.
There are legal and ethical requirements to consider when implementing technology to record conversations, it is important to ensure that the technology helps you manage these. Additionally, it is vital that you consider the quality of providers and their solutions. As a practitioner you can improve your audio quality by using earphones / headset to introduce a good quality microphone, and conduct the call in a quiet environment. You may need to conduct helpful coaching during the meeting to influence the audio quality on the client’s end. A polite request for them to use their earphones and receive the call in a quiet location if possible is an option.
It is now possible to have client phone calls recorded, transcribed, and auto-populated into a CRM file note within minutes. Integrations between a cloud-based or app-based solution and your CRM are much easier and cheaper to implement. Non-traditional telecommunications providers may be able to assist you to make cheaper calls with higher quality audio recordings using SIP trunking within your business phone system, as illustrated below.
Source: https://www.global-tone.biz/making-the-move-from-pstn-to-sip-trunk-sip-trunking-explained.
Face to face meetings and video meetings can also be recorded and transcribed. As they tend to have the longest duration, the adviser may want to have candid chats with clients without recording / transcription, and then introduce it for the formal parts of the meeting. However, the client does often express things very important to them during the rapport-building section of meetings, and the practitioner can often be feeling ‘I wish we were actually recording this’. To improve audio quality in face to face meetings we recommend investing in a good microphone by providers such as Audio Technica (audio-technica.com.au).
With all 3 of the above categories of client conversations, phone call, video conference, and face to face meetings, it is important to ensure that the client experience is enhanced, not diminished. Fundamentally, it should be enhanced as you are able to focus more on listening and guiding the conversation, rather than note-taking and a disrupted flow to the conversation.
The benefits of introducing 100% digital capture of client conversations will outweigh the effort of change and new technology requirements. At AVANSER we live and breathe this endeavour and we are here to help. Take advantage of a free telco health check, or 20 minute process improvement insights conversation.
Call Charles Blake on 0420 100 117 or email charles.blake@avanser.com.au.
September 2020
