How to Achieve Coordination Across Front and Back Office Departments

It’s pretty obvious when a front and back office aren’t working well together.

A customer might call and get one answer. Then someone in another department gives them a completely different one later. An employee might spend half an hour trying to find information – but another team already has it. Or a simple request might sit around because nobody is quite sure who’s supposed to deal with it.

These little problems quickly become frustrating for everyone.

The good news is, getting different departments to work together doesn’t have to mean making huge changes. Sometimes, it comes down to making sure three things:

1. Everyone is working towards the same things,
2. Everyone has access to the same information,
3. And everyone knows how to communicate with each other.

Keep reading on to learn more.

Align Goals and Metrics

Different teams naturally have different priorities.

The front office might care about answering customers quickly and keeping them happy. The back office is more focused on getting paperwork processes correctly or keeping costs under control.

Those things are all important. The problem begins when teams become so focused on their own targets that they forget about what the rest of the business is trying to achieve.

Once way to avoid this is to give departments some shared goals.

There are numerous aims you could choose. Customer satisfaction. Response times. How quickly issues are resolved. All of these are good examples. When teams are working towards some of the same targets, they have more reason to help each other rather than simply passing problems along.

Integrate Technology and Data

Nothing slows people down quite like having to hunt for information.

If customer details are stored in one system, order information is sitting in a spreadsheet, and previous conversations are buried in someone’s inbox, it’s only a matter of time before something gets missed.

Bringing this information together makes everyday work much easier.

For example, a service CRM gives front and back office teams access to the same customer information and history. Someone answering a customer’s question can see what has already happened – no need to ask another department to dig through its records.

It also means less copying and pasting, fewer repeated questions, and hopefully fewer “I thought you were dealing with that” moments.

Improve Communication

Good communication sounds simple. But it is surprisingly easy for it to fall apart when teams get busy.

Someone might send an email and assume it’s been seen. Another person might leave a note in a system that nobody checks regularly. Before long, a little issue has turned into a much bigger one.

Teams need simple ways to keep each other updated.

That could be regular catch-ups, shared communication channels, or clear processes for passing work between departments. The important thing here is that people know where to go when they need an answer and who is responsible for the next step.

Keep communication simple, too. That helps. If employees have to jump through hoops just to find out what’s happening with a customer or task, things are going to get missed.