Most agency owners know they need procedures but very few have them. Usually this is because they assume everyone knows what to do. They have been doing it for so long, who would question it? But what happens when the best CSR leaves or you start to grow and need to take the time to train a new hire (and this is extremely time-consuming and repetitive until they grasp things). Or what happens when your best customer calls to complain about something and there is no documentation?
The Hidden Cost of Undocumented Processes
When knowledge lives in people’s heads you are one resignation away from a huge problem. Many agencies have one or two accounting people. What if they are sick or win the lottery? Beyond this, the inconsistencies that show up when there are no documented procedures can cause major issues. The most important is E&O exposure, but also the time and money that is wasted trying to figure something out when it pops up. I once had a new hire take 45 minutes to find a signed application because there were no consistent procedures for labeling.
Let’s also consider what happens when no one has the answer…who do they come to? Usually, leadership, which certainly does not have time to be training.
What Good Procedures Actually Look Like
You may have come across someone who has a 100-page procedure manual. This is overkill. Most of the procedure manuals I help agencies implement are 10-15 pages at most. You want to keep it simple but thorough.
A procedure manual should be simple enough that someone who does not perform that role can follow it. That is a great way to test it out along the way. There should also be some quality control along the way, we don’t want one singular person in charge of any one procedure.
How to Get Your Team to Follow Them
You would be surprised how many times I have presented a procedure manual, and the servicing team breathed a sigh of relief. As long as your documented procedures are simple, clear, and consistent, the team usually will follow them with little prompting.
Make sure they are easy to find. Whether you link them in your agency management system, upload them to SharePoint or Teams, they should be housed in one place. Please also make sure you don’t put the editable master in there for everyone to edit…this could end badly.
Review procedures in meetings (briefly), reference them when you are training constantly, and if something goes wrong your first step should be to check where the procedure fell apart.
Consider implementing a quality assurance procedure. Whether someone in leadership performs these data integrity audits or it is peer to peer, this is the only way you will make sure that everyone is following the procedures consistently.
Where to Start
You don’t have to create a procedure manual all at once. Start with a procedure that the team does daily that could be the highest potential for E&O, like renewals. Write out the process and try to keep it under 15 steps. Don’t forget to put which role is responsible for each step and a timeline. Test them out and refine as you go.
Don’t expect perfection, this is where the quality assurance will come in. We are all human and make mistakes, but we want to make sure that everyone is trying.
Take Action
Pick one process in your agency that feels inconsistent or risky. Write it down this week, even a rough draft on a napkin is fine (because insurance). Then have someone else follow it and tell you where the gaps are. The first one will always be the hardest, and then you will be surprised at how quickly the others will flow.