Amp Up Communication Channels – Learn To Delegate – Part 5 of 5

They say the biggest challenge in business is communication, or lack thereof. I believe this to be true. How many times have you had a staff meeting where you announced a new policy, or a new system and within a week, the team is back to doing things the old way?  Does that sound familiar?  If only we had the tools to help us “beat the drum” when trying to steer our teams to success.  Communication is an ongoing challenge and yet, it’s no secret that we are more connected today through technology than ever before. It really is a paradox.
Imagine when you open multiple locations how much harder it becomes to provide clear communication to your teams.

Aside from daily pre-shift huddles, there are three apps that have helped us tremendously in this area.
GroupMe – Group text messaging is pretty much main stream, but this little nifty app takes it to a whole new level. Create a text group for every type of group that exists in your company and watch your team collaborate like a bunch of ninjas! For some suggestions of various text message groups that you can create with this app, click here.
Meistertask – For anyone in leadership that struggles with followup on delegated items, this app will feel like it was dropped from heaven and into your lap. This super easy-to-use app comes complete with the ability to create projects, tasks, due dates and even allows you to assign tasks to members of your team. Best of all, there’s a free version that is most likely all you will need to get the job done.  Here’s just one way we use this nifty app to manage customer service incidents in our salons.
Evernote – Think of this as a virtual filing cabinet, where you can basically digitize every shred of paper lying around the salon or spa. We have completely digitized our policy manual, education manual, and pretty much everything in between. Best part is that you can share these digitized documents with members of your team and also control read-write access as well.

Give these apps a try and let me know what you think. Maybe you’re using a some or all of them now. What’s been your experience? Share how you are using the apps in the comments below.