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What conversations have you had where you didn’t back up that conversation with an email or some other form of written communication?
Employees remember things the way they want to remember them. In their mind, what happened may NOT be what was agreed upon.
Customers have the same issue – it doesn’t matter what you tell them – if it’s not in writing, then the remembrances can be very different…hello lawsuit.
Here’s the rule:
If it’s not written, it never happened.
Customers and your employees have CMS.
What is CMS?
Convenient memory syndrome.
How many times have your employees said, “I told the customer X.” Yet, the customer doesn’t remember what X was. Since it wasn’t written, the customer has a different recollection than your employee did.
How many times have you “talked about policies” and what you want done? Yet, the employees don’t do it that way. They also have CMS.
If what you want to happen isn’t written, it won’t happen.
Beware of these situations:
Situation #1:
Salesperson sells a project. The client signed the contract. Then the person who signed the contract left during the middle of the contract. All of the verbal communications between the salesperson and the project manager who left were never passed along to that person’s replacement.
The verbal communications and decisions that were made by this person were never written down anywhere – either by the person or the salesperson/project manager. Now the new team is questioning the work, questioning the price, and it is different that what’s written in the contract. A major headache.
If additions to contracts, conversations about changes to the contract, or promises not in the contract are not written, the contract rules! It’s the only thing in writing.
Situation #2:
How many times have you said, “answer the phone this way” or “make sure you follow up with a customer within 24 hours.” And, it happens for a day or a week because you mentioned it. Without the procedures in writing, it doesn’t have a chance of being done the way you want it for the long term.
Your employees can’t read your mind. They remember about 30% of what you say. Write it down! Follow up on what is written.
Customers and employees have CMS.
They do NOT remember what you said or your employees told them. They forget the minute the meeting is over or the conversation with the customer ends. It MUST be in writing.
“We told you about it” doesn’t work. You will lose that argument every time.
You can’t prove that you said it.
Writing what you told a customer:
- Protects you when there is a management change.
- Protects you when a problem arises that the employee told the customer might happen.
- Protects you from major headaches and expensive project costs.
When a problem arises it’s your fault because you never told them about it.
The only thing that cures CMS is written conversations!
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