One thing that is sure to drive me insane is notes not getting into a management system. There is no excuse for it not happening. I’m too busy is a horrible excuse. What that means is your E&O exposure is not their priority. That really won’t work for you in the long run. What every agency owner needs to do is forget about the excuses and lean towards the solutions to break really bad habits.
“If your team is not putting notes into your system, you need to think of it as a bad habit that must be broken.”
There is no reasonable reason, other than a power outage, why phone call notes are not immediately placed into the system. Now hear what I am saying, the notes need to be IMMEDIATE. There should be no delay. Delays leave a chance for errors and mistakes.
So here are the top 4 ways to make sure notes always land in the management system.
- Before every phone call ends, repeat the call to the caller and enter the notes as you are recapping the call. If you ever listen to American Express or any other major call center, this is exactly what they do. And the great news is we can do it too. We recommend headsets for everyone (see the next tip). It makes it very easy to leave the notes immediately. You can create an activity to complete the task if it’s something that will take a bit of time. We should not, ever, take notes on paper. We have to act like we are winning the lottery at lunch and never returning!
- Invest in quality headsets and require that everyone use them. I have been to many agencies without headsets and I always wonder what is going on?! Headsets are a brilliant invention that allows you to work and type with no neck injuries. Now, I have been to an EQUAL amount of agencies that have headsets but the team doesn’t use them. They sit around collecting dust. Why? Because people don’t want to change… they would rather have a neck injury! Invest in headsets and invest your time in getting your people using them.
- No more notebooks. There is only 1 time I think you should ever see a notebook in an agency. That is in a meeting where you can’t take notes any other way. When you have no notebooks any other time, you HAVE to put items in the management system. You can get a whiteboard that you have to clean off if you need more space. With no notebooks you will find how quickly people start adding in their notes.
- Audit peoples’ work. In banking you had to take a vacation twice a year where they audit your desk. This meant someone did your job, checked your notes, your processes and more. In insurance we put up with sloppy work too often AND this causes your team to spend precious time chatting about what is happening on an account rather than getting the job done. Run activity reports and check files, just be present and you will be amazed at how quickly people start leaving notes.
I highly recommend you share this post with your team. 20 seconds of note taking can save a world of E&O.
