The Value of Remote Communications

As the events of the first half of 2020 play out, most of us are working partially or entirely from home. A lot of us are not sure if we will be back in cubicles anytime soon. Business owners and leaders grapple with new (and some recycled) ideas about working remotely. Maybe we could all be more efficient, and things could be better by working (partially or fully) from home.

There is already empirical data that shows that fuel and energy consumption is down, and the health of our air and waterways are up. The question for business leaders is this: Is business better when working from home and distance-managing remote employees? According to Netskope.com, the number of remote workers has increased by 250% since the beginning of 2020. That is, a lot of us thrown into our new remote (or partially remote) work realities. Ask almost anyone who’s working and they’ll tell you they are actually busier than they were before. Yet those who haven’t worked remotely in the recent past are probably ill-equipped and ill-trained to “remote” adequately, let alone effectively.

So, we need to ask, with so many working remotely, are we as productive as we were? Can we be more productive? As business leaders, we are busier than ever, and our frontline employees will argue that they are even busier. The problem is that both managers and frontline employees will come up with a myriad of reasons why they are right—but right about what? Both managers and frontline forces often confuse activity for productivity. And, with the reality of distance and remote isolation, this confusion is more prevalent than ever.

In the first part of my four-part series on Effective Remote Business Communications, I pointed out that all remote communication efforts fall into one of four methods below:

1. Scheduled live meetings—Accomplished via a web conferencing tool or a phone call
2. Scheduled reports or emails—Summarizing activities planned or completed and often due on a particular day every week or month
3. The impromptu outreach—by phone or email
4. The relationship-building or retention outreach—by phone or email

My last blog covered the basic tenets of a productive scheduled, live meeting. I continue the conversation below and focus on scheduled reports and how they help eliminate the peril of confusing activity with actual productivity. 

Automated daily reports

The Scheduled Report of Emails is key to ensuring that all communication concerning productivity is factual and is shared with transparency and frequency. I am a big believer in daily reports on progress to goals. And what works exceptionally well are dashboards and reports that show a goal, attainment, and comparison to the cohort. Below is a simple example of a sales rep’s daily scorecard, a scorecard that will show progress to the ultimate goal: revenue.

While the above example is simple, it is powerful. And, all of it can be integrated into a dashboard or suite of reports with relative ease. By combining data from CRMs, telephony, accounting, POS, and more, a business leader can deliver an accurate measure of productivity that is the result of the right, focused activity. When a business leader chooses to use intelligence reporting that is automated, scheduled, and repeated, they will free time from the mundane and the tedious and provide a platform for conversations for improving and repeating success.

Find out how, with the help of ClicData and automated sales reports, sales leaders and sales professionals can be kept informed about their progress toward their goals and what got them to where they are, all before their first cup of coffee.

---

Read also