Increasing productivity is not about working harder, but rather about working smarter. With credit management, there is an infinite number of small tasks and small accounts that can consume your attention. But, as a credit manager, a vital part of the role is looking at the tools and solutions you are using in order to help with these tasks and thereby increase productivity. Being bogged down with mundane, repetitive credit management tasks often means credit managers are unable to help their teams become more productive, effective and better credit controllers. Therefore, using the right tools will allow you to focus on becoming a better credit manager. So how do you stimulate and increase your employee productivity?
Working smarter, not harder
With so much time spent on repetitive, low-value, tasks, training employees often falls by the wayside and consequently productivity drops. It’s important, therefore, to take advantage, or at least investigate the tools and solutions that will enable you and your team to work smarter. By picking tools capable of automating the more monotonous tasks, such as invoicing or sending emails chasing for payment, you can focus on helping your team and adding value.
Once these tools are in place you have more free time to look at value-adding tasks. You can now focus on how to become a better credit controller. This may mean completing training and other ways to increase your own productivity. You should also consider the possibility of collaborating with other departments in order to improve credit management throughout the company.
Improving relationships
Spending time improving cross-department relationships could be a really effective and productive use of time. Often, credit management teams and sales teams can clash. While one team looks to close a sale, the other is responsible for ensuring payment is received for that sale. Despite the two processes being very much linked, there is little collaboration. By working closely in alignment with the sales team, you’ll gain a better understanding of each department’s role. After all, businesses need sales, but a sale doesn’t become a good sale until the payment has been received. Ultimately, both teams are working towards a common goal.
Adding value
With automation tools in place and extra time available, credit management teams can focus on the more important tasks. Rather than focusing on several small accounts of £100 each, for example, increase efficiency by concentrating on the larger accounts. These accounts are likely to be integral to your business. Therefore, ensure your attention is given in order to retain them as customers. As automation is taking care of other tasks, you can spend more time developing a better relationship with these customers, spending time getting to know them and their needs. This better relationship will be beneficial for both parties and will allow you to keep up with any developments within the customer’s organisation that may impact their account.
By employees using their time in a better, more constructive way, the business will also benefit from better customer segmentation and better customer contacts. While, on an individual level, increased productivity will allow credit controllers to focus on the more interesting aspects of credit management, rather than the drudgery. This will result in increased satisfaction from the role and the credit controller looking forward to coming into work. All in all, improving productivity, with the help of automation, will result in a happy employee and a happy organisation.
