Small Things, Big Consequences (True Stories)

Without a system like ProcessPlan managing your company’s day-to-day execution, its easy for small things to get missed, forgotten or overlooked. However, missing “small things” can often have big consequences.

True Story

At one company, someone forgot to check one single checkbox when setting up a new customer in their billing system. That may sound like a small thing. However, that single checkbox was the “recurring billing” checkbox. So, instead of their customer receiving a recurring 4k invoice every month, they received a single 4k invoice once. And, the discrepancy didn’t appear on any Accounts Receivable reports because the invoices were never generated by the billing system.

That single checkbox cost the company $44,000. Not a small thing.

Another One

An insurance agent who works on commissions has to submit paperwork within 7 days of getting the client’s signature. However, because the person is busy and has lots of distractions, the paperwork slips his mind and he forgets to submit the paperwork by the deadline. Thus, he misses out on $15,000 worth of commissions over the next several years (contracts auto renew). Plus, in addition to losing a client and the commissions, the agent also lost all the downstream referrals that client would have provided.

One More

A technology consulting company has an agreement that their client’s need to sign which explains who’s responsible for certain technology costs and renewals. Everyone know about the agreement; however, the company is so eager to help the client and the sales people are so eager to get their commissions, that the details of waiting for the agreement to be signed gets overlooked.

The consulting company starts expending time, money and energy helping the client and everything goes smoothing for a while, until it’s time for the technology refreshes and renewals to start happening. Then, a $20,000 billing disagreement requires that the agreement be pulled out. It’s only then that the company realizes no agreement was ever signed.

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“Small” oversights occur repeatedly throughout companies every day. Sometimes the oversights are never discovered. Sometimes the consequences are negligible. Sometimes they’re not. But why risk it? If there’s a way to virtually eliminate mistakes, oversights and miscommunications, why leave it to chance?

There’s no reason to ever make the same mistake more than once. There’s a tool that can help. Wink. Wink.