«Communication is the lifeline of any relationship». – Elizabeth Bourgeret
Something happened last week while I was setting up new tasks for my team: the planning stage was smooth since we had clear instructions and goals from the client and a set deadline that was very realistically achievable. Even the budgeting process was a breeze, and everything looked ready to go. Mind you, this was all discussed and planned in an office, during a meeting with all the facts on the table.
Some issues were found when it was time for us to start distributing the work internally, reaching out to vendors, and sending the documentation to our project managers and clients for approval: there was a lot of information coming and going from different sources, and at times, vendors were acting on outdated information and an update was not possible to be provided in a timely fashion. We tried reaching out to the client for an answer and the reply was received once vendor personnel was already dispatched and on-site. That set us back a week while we tried to figure everything out, time that was taken from the proposed deadline.
Also, all this information flow was scattered and divided between the vendor representative, their technicians, our own project management staff, and the client, and this was just for one project!
How does Sweven work as an effective communication tool?
A few things we considered when designing communication tools for Sweven were:
- Not all information shared is always relevant or actionable.
- There are many types of information (visual, technical, actionable commands, etc.)
- Diversifying the means of communication can be effective in the short term, but it can be unreliable when trying to keep a log or archive.
This led to optimal solutions you can access right now in Sweven.
For your Clients:
Effortless reporting.
In most industries, a report on progress is required on a weekly or monthly basis, which might require a call or meeting without really getting into the core details of all the work provided and does require a specialist to provide specific information.
This can be optimized by granting your clients access to Sweven’s Client Portal, a dedicated webpage to display the work your company is performing for them and the status of each task.
Your clients can access this portal anytime and at any point after a work order has been created in Sweven, essentially getting a live progress report without the hassle.
Email notifications for the Clients’ staff on the status of your work.
While the Client Portal works as a central hub of information, you might want to specifically notify someone in your Client’s team when an event occurs, for instance, a project manager might need to know when a task has moved to Scheduling or someone in your accounts payable team needs to be notified when it’s ready for billing.
Sweven can send email notifications based on your Client’s role or hierarchy for specific actions. As you can see below, the Regional manager is notified only when a new work order is created, and a Site Supervisor is notified when the task mas moved to the «Need Estimates» stage, avoiding multiple unnecessary notifications and focusing on tasks where they are really needed.
You can find out more in this article.
For your Vendors:
Notes
Each Sweven work order has a Notes module where all information coming from Clients, Vendors, and Technicians is stored and can be redistributed with a single click.
For instance, a Client can leave a note specifying a task or material related to a work order, in this case, a door model to be installed.
You can then check the note left by the Client in your Sweven platform, and make it available for the Vendor working on this work order just by checking a box.
The vendor is then able to receive this information in their Vendor Portal exactly as provided by the Client, without this process taking several steps and media, saving time and resources.
Notify Vendors of information directly from a work order with an email.
For vendors without access to the Sweven vendor portal or to send information directly to an external source, you can send an email containing the exact same content as a note.
The vendor or external source will receive an email with this information.
For your internal staff:
Tag a coworker using Sweven’s Notes
You can «tag» a coworker in your organization to notify them of an action to be taken or to let them know this work order is ready for the next stage.
Your coworker will be notified in an email and on Sweven of this mention.
This will allow you to be in direct contact with your staff regarding a task and the action that needs to be taken.
As you can see, Sweven offers a centralized hub of communication and information, available for the users you choose and with an expedited, automatized process that guarantees this information is actionable and moving.
Are there other ways you can think of that this can be useful for your business? Let us know in the comments!
