Are there ways to increase customer satisfaction, reduce turnover rate among critical employees, and streamline communications from the bottom to the top of your organization? Yes, and it all starts with focusing on one key segment of your workforce.
Who is this digital solution designed for? Firstline Workers.
Who Are Firstline Workers?
Firstline workers are the first point of contact between a company and the customer base it serves. These workers represent your brand every day as they engage customers by putting products and services into action.
If you employ call center reps, cashiers, field personnel, production teams, maintenance crews, healthcare providers, servers, delivery drivers, or factory workers--there is a new way to empower and improve the workflow of these important team members.
The Firstline Workforce Benefits from Integrated Technology That Helps Them Communicate With Management and Stay Productive
When it comes to technology, the workers who have the most to gain by digital transformation are often overlooked. Yet, the organizations that have invested in tech capabilities and information sharing to their Firstline workforce have witnessed growth exceeding 20% a year!
In other words, giving Firstline Workers the right tools can help your business increase productivity and savings.
The best business technology creates a culture of collaboration that enables these crucial employees to do their best work from anywhere, on any device.
A Forbes insights study conducted in 2017, concluded that the essential skills Firstline Workers will need over the next 3-5 years (now) are:
- Quality management
- Collaboration and teamwork
- Adaptability/flexibility
- Communication
- Time management
Companies will have to address the technology their Firstline Workers are using if they want to satisfy these needs.
There are 3 goals management should focus on when it comes to deciding whether to give new technology to the workers in this group.
- Will this technology streamline business processes?
- Can this technology transform collaboration? (Reducing the friction of production).
- Can I protect the data that these workers will be accessing and creating?
Microsoft's Teams for SMB Firstline is a Solution That Can Accomplish These Goals Within One Platform
Microsoft has decided to take the productivity tools and intelligent cloud services of Office 365 and use it to empower Firstline Workers.
Teams (a part of the Office 365 productivity suite) has certainly become popular among information workers with 20 million daily active users. However, the features that workers love about Teams can work for more than just people behind a desk.
Microsoft has recently added some additional Teams features designed specifically for Firstline Workers.
Microsoft Teams is Getting "Shifts" and a Smart Camera.
Firstline Workers can manage their tasks and shifts in Teams while using the chats, channels and priority alerts that Teams is already known for.
If a deliver driver wants to alert management about a damaged package while they are out on their route, they need to alert their supervisor, document the damage, and take an approved course of action--without an integrated solution, this workflow costs valuable time and can require several different devices to complete.
However, with Office 365 for SMB Firstline, the deliver driver only needs the features native to Teams on their tablet or mobile to perform this action quickly and securely.
Using the smart camera in Teams, a worker can store images in a secure cloud, share them with management, and receive instant responses via chat.
Investing In Better Technology For Firstline Workers Doesn't Have to Break the Bank
It's clear that digital transformation can reap big rewards that both the Firstline and the C-suite will appreciate. If you're interested in finding out more about Office 365 for SMB Firstline, join the conversation ==> here <==.
(In Part Two of this blog series, we'll take a deeper dive into the new Teams Firstline features and pricing).
