Topic Teasers Vol. 80: Compliance Without Power

Have a question you would like to submit as a potential Topic Teaser? Send a message to Barbee Davis today!

  Communications Management   Resource Management  

We recently developed new accounting software for internal use to create invoices. Due to interest in tracking benefits realization and also capturing customer reactions to evaluate our success, my project team has been asked to stay on and address any issues for six months. One of the sales representatives gives special discounts and terms but fails to enter them into the new system for billing, and the angry customers call my team. I’ve told his manager, but the behavior continues. It makes the process improvement statistics for our software look bad and is costing us money. What can I do?

A. If talking with the sales representative’s manager didn’t work, talk to the manager’s manager. This sales person should be fired.

B. Take the salesperson to lunch. See if there is anything bothering him. Try to help him solve any work-related or personal issues, so that he can focus more on entering the correct data for billing.

C. Alert the representative by e-mail when the invoices will be sent out for two months. Give him a deadline to enter any unique terms not covered by the default pricing tables in the software. Copy his manager.

D. Prepare a second training class on how to operate the new software and schedule all of the employees in the organization who use the software to attend. If one person isn&…

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.