The same details stop being typed in twice.
A job moves between people as a forwarded email, the same details get keyed into two systems, and when the person who knows the file is out, the work waits. None of it is anybody's fault: it is what happens when a business grows past the point where one person can hold it.
You might recognise some of this.
If three or four of these are true, this is the page for you. If none of them are, it probably is not, and we would rather you knew that now.
- The same customer details are entered into two or three systems
- A job is handed over by forwarding a thread and hoping the next person reads it
- When one person is off, other people cannot pick their work up
- A new starter takes months to be useful because very little is written down
- The answer to a question is usually in somebody's inbox
One made up example, before and after.
This is an illustration, not a client. Northridge Systems is a new practice and there are no case studies on this site. The example below is invented to show the shape of the problem and the shape of the fix. Nothing in it describes a real business or a real result.
A handover now
- A job is agreed on the telephone and written on a pad.
- It is typed into the quoting system, and again into the calendar, and the customer's details are typed a third time onto the invoice.
- The person who agreed it forwards the email thread to whoever is doing the work.
- Two of the three systems now disagree about the price, and nobody notices until the invoice goes out.
- The person who could explain it is on annual leave.
A handover after
- The details are entered once, where the job starts.
- The calendar entry and the paperwork are built from that one record rather than retyped.
- The handover is a short form with the four things the next person actually needs, not a forwarded thread.
- A person still checks and approves it. Nothing goes to a customer unseen.
- When somebody is off, the next person can open the job and see what was agreed.
What is actually handed over.
Written down before the work starts, as part of the quote, so there is no argument later about what was included.
- One record per job, with the fields that matter agreed with you
- The connection that stops the second and third retyping, using the systems you already pay for where we can
- A short handover that the next person can act on without ringing anybody
- Written down: what happens, in what order, and who does it
- The notes, the logins and the reasoning
Decisions stay with people.
Software is good at remembering and terrible at judgement. Where AI is genuinely useful we use it, and it drafts rather than decides: nothing reaches a customer without somebody looking at it first.
- What is agreed with the customer, and at what price
- Whether a job is ready to hand over
- Anything that reaches a customer: a person checks it
- Who can see which jobs
The next step is a conversation about this one thing.
Pick the handover that goes wrong most often, and we will follow one through end to end. It runs to 45 minutes and there is nothing to prepare. Within two working days you get one page: what we heard, what we would change first and what it would involve, yours to keep whether or not you use us.