Restructuring the administrative base of your business can be a stressful and expensive process, especially if there are delays along the way which leave your business vulnerable to slow response times and potential mistakes. It is therefore imperative that if you are going to restructure your administrative duties to provide a better level of service for your customers, that you aim to do so intelligently, using a range of strategies to save on money and time. Read on for our top four ways to restructure your administrative duties.
1. Plan ahead to your vision for the future
Before you restructure your administrative duties, it is vital that you have a clear idea of why the restructuring is taking place – are you planning for an expansion across the board, or is this a step to stop and consolidate your company’s position with your existing clients? The direction of your administrative restructure should depend on how your prospects are looking for the next five years, and, in the immediate term, on how the balance sheet looks for the next six months. Plan your administration to respond to the demands you expect on your business in the future. This may include having more staff than you strictly need in place ahead of a period of growth a few months away. However, this investment can certainly be worth it to know that when the time comes you will be able to accommodate a larger number of clients quickly.
2. Use a telephone answering service to deal with the overflow
A lot of customer interest is a sign of success in business, but you may find that as your administration expands, you do not have enough staff to answer all calls. Telephone answering services provide a solution to this by allowing calls you are not able to take to pass directly through to a call centre where they will be picked up quickly within working hours. Call centre staff can be instructed in what to say to give your customers the comfort of being in contact, and from there can work to put the customers through to a mobile number, or to take a message and relay it on to you.
This service can be provided with a great deal of flexibility, often available for as little as one month, or on a rolling contract. This means that you never have to worry about the administrative growing pain of calls piling up and going unanswered.
3. Consider organizational apps as a way of increasing efficiency
A huge range of apps are now available for the workplace, covering a range of administrative tasks from diaries to work schedules to project management. Apps such as Slack allow everyone within the organizational side of your business to create a range of conversations in which they can exchange documents and media specific to each individual project. This cuts down on confusion and the difficulty of searching back through a range of inboxes and cluttered general conversation threads.
4. Discuss upcoming changes with staff and gather feedback
While you will have a vision for your company and its restructuring, it is always worth asking your employees to see what they make of planned changes and whether they have immediate concerns. It is important for morale that you do not to just tell them change is coming, but rather to engage with your employees. This will also offer you a chance to learn what issues need to be addressed to keep your business running successfully.
Your company structure might be the reason your company is struggling. If you take the time to assess where restructuring needs to take place, you might just find some of the answers you are looking for to look to a brighter future..
For more great business tips, check out the other blogs on Career Geek.
