For anyone who works in a service related business, they’ll know first hand that productivity is key to increasing business performance. For most service businesses, there are a lot of moving parts, from managing stock and orders, to attracting new business, and everything that comes with customer service.
Finding simple and effective ways to make small incremental improvements to processes is a sure fire way to improve the productivity of your service business. With that in mind, take a look at the 5 tips below to help your service business become a productive powerhouse.
- Get employees to feed in to the process
No one knows your business better than the people who work there, so it stands to reason that they will have the best ideas on how to improve productivity and make the business run more smoothly.
Conduct regular feedback and idea sessions with staff from all levels of the business, and try to understand what could be improved in each area. These things could be as small as improvements to customer order forms, or as large as investing in new systems and software.
- Use technology to streamline activity
In 2020, most service businesses will use software and apps to help them run a more efficient operation. Things like field service management software for companies with engineers visiting locations to install services, to communication apps like Slack, to help improve internal collaboration between teams in the office.
Investing in software to improve the productivity of your service business is likely the single most effective way to offer instant impact. Such software can also help to free up time for employees, helping them to do more of what they’re good at, and less manual and repetitive work.
- Don’t underestimate the value of training
Most service businesses will have large teams of people working across multiple areas and disciplines. It’s not uncommon to find members of staff who are running several projects, some of which may be outside of their remit and level of experience.
Offering training for staff so that they can upskill in related areas to their roles is a surefire way of improving the productivity of individuals, teams and the wider business. It can also go a long way in improving employee engagement, as it shows the business has a willingness to invest in it’s people.
- Get the right person for the right job
One of the key reasons often cited in employee surveys for dissatisfaction at work, is that they are asked or required to do things which are not directly related to their role. If a business is launching a new project, perhaps a referral marketing strategy, it can be tempting for the marketing director to pull a few team members in to help lead and manage the project.
Not only is this frustrating for employees, it will also likely lead to a less productive campaign and results, compared with if the business employed a dedicated hire for the role, with direct experience in the particular field.