Category: Blog

When your business gets a new customer, that’s a great moment. It means you’ve been able to successfully identify their pain points and how you can help them.

It means the start of a fruitful relationship and partnership as you begin working together, providing them relief from their daily struggles via your product or service.

But this relationship won’t be positive if you do not introduce them to your product or service correctly. Customer onboarding is a key component of any successful customer relationship, and it helps your customer service team navigate through their daily tasks, as your customer has a clear understanding of what is possible. 

While it may seem complicated at first, there is nothing complicated about customer onboarding. 

So long as your process is sound, you’ll retain customers.

What Is Customer Onboarding 

Customer onboarding is the process new users or customers go through to become familiar with your product or service. This goes for anything from a new piece of machinery or equipment to a new software program. In both instances, the user or customer has to be taught how to use the product to the best of their ability. 

It’s important at the beginning of your relationship and onboarding to have a clear understanding of the current process your customer has in place, and where your product fits in to help them. By understanding this, you ensure the onboarding will be as painless as possible. 

The process can come in a variety of forms. It varies between B2B and B2C, so you should be able to plan according to your audience. From scheduled guided tutorials to video walkthroughs to long manuals, anything is possible. You just need to pick what model works best for you. 

These are some key steps to keep in mind when you plan your customer onboarding:

1. For B2C we know that the sign-up step comes first, wherein your customer must fill out their information and pay for your product or service. For B2B however, once you’ve signed with your client, you want to go over the requirements they need and discover how exactly your product will be stepping in. Make sure that you have a direct person of contact for your team to start setting up and working directly with.  This helps the customer to understand what and how they are currently working and why and how they could improve it. Essentially, there is something in their existing business process that made them turn to you – you want to know what it is. That way you can address it correctly, without harming the parts of the process that do work well already. Having the process mapped out at this stage would be a great step. Consider this as the discovery phase: a vital part of any onboarding process.
2. Data integration is a key component for both B2C and B2B, as customers need to populate your product or service with their specific information or requirements. Making it as easy as possible for them to do so via integrations with other systems or products, and starting early on in the onboarding process, will make a huge difference. In B2B in particular, this needs to be done immediately after signing, so the initial setup is complete and there can be a test run. These tests can also take a couple of tries, which is why doing the integration early on is key in B2B
3. Welcome messages and greetings following the sign-up step in B2C onboarding serves to acknowledge the payment and investment your customer has made in your product or service. This may be via email or snail mail or with an instantaneous pop-up. You want to let the customer know you’re aware they’ve made a purchase and are excited to work for them. For an app, this may be a pop-up that shows up the first time they use it. Think of Gmail’s messages when you first make an account, or on any social media site. You always receive a warm welcome.
4. A guided tutorial of some kind for your product will take place here. In the past, this may have been a manual or PDF file, or even an old-school video. Today, you are just as likely to get a short video as you are to have little pop-ups explaining what each part of the product or service does. These tutorials are often made optional or easy to skip, as a lot of customers prefer learning as they use the product. B2B products will usually require a more direct explanation, as you are training your customer to use your product for their business. You’re an investment to them, and you want to retain them as much as possible. As such, B2B customer onboarding takes a bit more time and is more detailed, especially when training customer users of your product or solution.
5. You are always encouraged to fill in additional parts of your account or profile when signing up for a new product. Think of Gmail recommending you make a signature or G Suite asking to establish your time zone. These are known as empty spaces that you fill out during this process so that both the product and customer service will have a clearer picture of you as a customer.
   In B2B, this step begins when your client starts using the system to onboard customers. The customer onboarding and customer service team should be ensuring that all the new data is being uploaded correctly by the new users. As they are still learning, be prepared for and allocate time to resolve mistakes. Your goal is to lead them professionally through how to use your product or service correctly. You can also think of it as an interactive walkthrough.
6. You want to have documentation accessible and easy to find for your customers. This is where they can turn to before going to customer service whenever they have a question. Creating a help feature or FAQ is the best way to do this, as well as creating forums where your customers can help each other. This can also be sometimes known as a knowledge base. You can also save time here by using the processes you documented in the discovery phase as training material. In this way, customers will have a ready-to-use knowledge base that they had input in creating. 
7. Routine check-ins and follow-ups are vital to the customer onboarding process, even if it has been some time since they became a customer. B2B product owners in particular may want to invest in making sure their customers continue to receive attention in the first thirty days of use.
   This is because by checking in on your customers, you can get a feel for how they are enjoying your product or service. You will learn what is missing, what can be improved, and what you can add to your existing line of products or services. You can inform them of what new aspect you have to offer, and try it out with them for their immediate feedback. Offering tips and tricks to best use your product or service goes a long way. It also allows you to present your customers with a personalized experience, something that will lead 93% of customers to buy again.
8. Tied to the above, mini-celebrations are a great way to keep your customers engaged. If they hit large numbers or an anniversary, or even if you have their birthday information, sending them a message would not go amiss. For example, Grammarly keeps users engaged by revealing how much new vocabulary they are using, and how much better they are doing than their peers. Treat any important date or useful data you have as an opportunity to engage and check in with your customers. 

This is generally what a customer onboarding process looks like – but why go to all the trouble? Why not just let them figure it out on their own with some videos?

Two words: Customer. Retention.

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Importance of Customer Onboarding Process 

A customer onboarding process can make, or break, your relationship with your customers. After having been through the sales cycle with them, the last thing you want is to lose them or their confidence in you after you onboard them.

You need that first impression of your company’s process to be a 10/10.

The more personalized and organized you can make that first impression, the better.

Because if your customers like what they see and continue to stay on, providing a valuable source of feedback and information for you, they will start trusting you more. And with that trust, they will start referring your products and services more to others in their circles, earning you more and more clients. It’s a win-win.

Still struggling to understand? Let’s take a look at some statistics that demonstrate the importance of customer onboarding: 

• For the importance of a knowledge base, 91% of customers would make use of one if available, and it is the most used method by customers looking to resolve things on their own.
• Acquiring new customers is 5 to 25 times more difficult than retaining existing customers – so you really want to make sure you are retaining your clients through a good onboarding process.
• Engaged customers, via follow-ups, check-ins, or pop-ups, are 90% more likely to buy more and spend 60% more doing so – those check-ins are not just a task to complete, but a way to potentially generate even more revenue while strengthening your relationship. 
• 69% of customers will recommend a business to others after a positive customer experience, and 50% would make use of the product or service more frequently – and it all starts with a positive first impression via your customer onboarding process.
• On the importance of a personalized experience – 59% of customers value personalization over speed when it comes to customer service. And this personalization starts at the onboarding stage.

The customer onboarding process cannot be an afterthought – it will harm you a lot more than not spending time building it if you leave it for the last minute. But it also does not have to be a difficult process to create.

So long as you have the right tools, of course.

Skore for Process

Skore is a product focused on process mapping, analysis, management, and improvement, and it’s your key to success when it comes to customer onboarding.

With Skore, you can easily map your customer onboarding process out.

Why map out the process instead of creating a list? Because a visual map is a lot more intuitive and easy to read when it comes to improvements. By creating a visual step-by-step guide, everyone involved can follow along and their contribution to the process is noted. 

Skore makes it easy to visualize everyone involved: their accountability for the steps and tasks assigned, and their completion time. This is because we utilise Universal Process Notation, making it possible for any layman to follow along in the process stages.

Don’t believe me? 

Take a look for yourself.

You can find our customer onboarding template in our process template library. 

As you can see, the template is easy to understand and, as seen previously, create on our software. It follows all the steps outlined above, from when the customer is first added through their first month. Additional check-in points can be created as well.

You can edit as needed, should you find that you would like to add another step to visualise it more clearly. Or you can create a sub-process that you can easily access from the initial map and go back and forth.

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And it’s so easy to read and understand that any process you map out can be retained and updated to become a knowledge base or training material for any future employees who need it 

Conclusion

At Skore, we value the importance of our customers. 

And we know you do as well.

This is why we offer a template for customer onboarding because it is a step that can shape the entirety of your relationship with your customers. And we want to help you get it right.

Keen to learn more about what we offer? Get in touch with us!

Salesforce has always recognized the importance of process mapping for businesses.

Their free, online-learning platform Trailhead offers a module focused on process mapping for business analysts as part of their Salesforce Business Analyst course. 

Doing an entire course takes quite a bit of time, so we figured we’d make things easier. Read on to learn about mapping processes, their importance to Salesforce, and how our team here at Skore makes it easier for you.

Process Mapping for Salesforce 

Process mapping in business refers to visualizing the steps you take to ensure that your organisation or company is functioning correctly. It’s not enough to make a list of steps one through five – seeing them in a map form makes it a lot easier to find places for process improvement.

Without process mapping, it is very difficult to truly understand what is happening in your business from a bird’s eye perspective. You tend to be so deeply involved and entrenched that you can miss things very easily.

And if you’re changing your CRM to Salesforce, you do not want anyone to be confused about how this new technology is going to work and where it will fit within your existing processes.

The CRM adoption process even has a name: CRM implementation. You need to closely work with the customer onboarding team and know what it is you are after. Otherwise, you will both come out losing from this interaction. And this is why mapping, and sharing that visual aid, is an absolute necessity in systems implementation.

An existing process, or As-Is process, is the map you create of what you currently do. You study it to find places for improvement, and then look for tools that will help you. You then create a To-Be process.

Salesforce is a formidable tool and CRM. But, you have to know how you are going to use it to truly make the most of it. 

Known as requirements gathering, this part of the process helps you understand your To-Be process a lot more. Having determined your As-Is process and found its faults, you now have to think about how you would re-structure it with Salesforce as your CRM, and where it would best help your team. 

You then start building your To-Be process with the implementation of Salesforce in mind.  You want to make sure that it is accessible and understandable for all involved parties. While this may seem daunting at first, it is not difficult to implement Salesforce for your business, nor is it necessary to hire an external expert.

Simply understand and map your process with the right tool, and you can ensure everyone is on the same page when it comes to the steps to correctly implement Salesforce to your business.

This is why we believe so strongly in process mapping. 

By having created your ideal process, you can share that with the Salesforce customer onboarding team, ensuring that everyone knows what is happening when and why. It makes it easier for both sides to know what is happening at any given point in time, so the entire process can go off without a hitch.

And the best way to make sure everyone is on the same page?

Utilizing simply notation in your process maps, such as Universal Process Notation (UPN).

UPN Implementation and Salesforce

UPN is what our software utilises at Skore.

We have determined that it is the easiest notation for everyone involved in the process to understand and follow along. It does not require extensive study, like BPMN, nor does it result in cutting out steps, like Swim Lane Diagrams.

Instead, UPN simplifies the process without removing any important information or step. It does not leave anything out. Starting from a top-down approach, you must first take the business as a whole into consideration, simplifying what your business does. From there, you can then look into the processes that help your business run as it does, and the sub-processes that help them.

With Skore, we’ve captured this, and made it easy for you or anyone in your organisation or company to understand and help you build your map. And our focus on UPN has paid off.

Salesforce recognises the importance and usefulness of UPN when it comes to business process mapping. 

Trailhead’s Business Process Mapping course now includes a module focused on UPN. They recognise that although several forms of diagrams for processes exist, UPN’s simplicity is applicable for all industries, for every level of complexity and business, and for organisations of any size. For this reason, it is a favoured option. They state that UPN diagrams:

• Will demonstrate every part of a process from an overview to detailed diagrams
• Can be created in collaboration with others
• Because UPN diagrams can be viewed online and integrated into existing applications
• Can be broadened or narrowed depending on the process
• Provide enough information and context for metrics to help make decisions

UPN diagrams are unambiguous, read from left to right, and have very simple symbols that do not have multiple possible meanings. Any layman is able to understand and follow along in a process map built with UPN. 

And this is what you want. Stakeholders should be able to follow along and understand what is being presented to them, not expected to be versed in incredibly specific symbols and meanings.

Process mapping should answer key questions about your current business organisation. When is something happening – UPN answers this by being read from left to right and utilizing arrows. What is happening – UPN answers this by the action placed within the Activity box. Who is doing it – UPN answers this by filling out this information below the what.

No rocket science required.

With business giants such as Salesforce now incorporating UPN more and more, it won’t be long before it very much becomes the norm when it comes to process mapping. You don’t want to be left behind!

At Skore, we’ve taken this notation and made it the cornerstone of our process mapping software. 

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Skore’s Approach to Process Mapping  

Skore is the ultimate tool to correctly implement process mapping for any business, including Salesforce.

Salesforce recognises this, as it is encouraging others to learn about UPN as part of their free online learning for business analysts. And people are beginning to take notice of this shift towards UPN.

Our team at Skore has always known and trusted in the simplicity and utility of UPN when it comes to business process mapping. We use it ourselves, after all.

The goal of our software is to simplify everything and help our clients improve their business. When this happens, it means that our thesis regarding the utility of UPN is correct. And fortunately, it happens more often than not. 

Business process mapping with Skore, and with UPN, is quite easy as you can see. 

We also offer further training through our community, and our YouTube channel offers recording of webinars and drop-in sessions where you can educate yourself further.

We want more and more businesses to be introduced to the idea of UPN, and specifically to creating their own process maps. Creating process maps for different aspects of your business can lead you to have a process library as a business that you can constantly refer back to, and this will help you improve further. 

Using Skore, you can save the process maps you’ve made, creating knowledge that can stay with your business for years to come, without having to check old notes or asking a particular specialist. Anyone can understand what you were doing at any time, and anyone can access it.

Conclusion 

Salesforce has given UPN it’s seal of approval. 

The fact that is has appeared as part of its online learning coursework indicates that it is very much the future of process mapping.

Beyond that, UPN is a simple, clear notation that can help everyone involved very easily understand and follow along your process map.

Skore is proud to use UPN as the base of our process mapping software, and prouder still when we are recognised as a great source of information on the subject.

If you’re interested in utilising UPN for your business processes, including those related to Salesforce, get in touch with our team!

UiPath is an automated solution for routine business processes. A robotic process automation (RPA) tool, it helps businesses automate routine activities so that they can concentrate on other areas of the business instead of mundane tasks.

In the right hands, this tool can be exceedingly useful for businesses looking to automate and better their processes. But it has to be done correctly, or else it will not work.

Having the correct approach to UiPath process mapping is the cornerstone from which the entire solution works, so you want to make sure you’ve done this correctly. Read on to learn how to do this, as at Skore we consider ourselves process mapping experts. 

What is UiPath Process Mapping 

UiPath, as an RPA tool, is very much born from the AI and robot zeitgeist currently taking place in SaaS. And it is extremely useful. 

If you minimise the amount of time certain tasks and activities take, you and your employees can gain back precious time. A time that can be used in other areas that require more concentration than in completing daily tasks. 

A great example comes from healthcare: 

A patient’s information needs to be taken correctly and passed to their doctor, who may then pass it on for further examination to other departments or doctors. But the doctor does not need to be in charge of completing several additional tasks or requirements. With the right RPA, these steps can be minimized, and the doctor can spend a lot more necessary time with their patient.

This strategy can then be applied to a variety of industries. From education to government to construction, every industry has monotonous, necessary tasks that can be automated and save everyone time.

Process mapping refers to the visualization of the business processes your organisation or company has. It can be anything from how a customer purchases something to the processes associated with getting the product or service they purchased to them. Process maps will have multiple steps and moving parts, and many employees will be involved throughout. 

There are different approaches and schools of thought when it comes to process mapping, but at Skore we believe in simplicity and clarity. This ensures that all involved parties can look at a process and understand it without needing to consult a manual or an expert.

So what does process mapping have to do with UiPath?

Well, UiPath takes your business’s existing processes and automates the parts that can be completed by an AI instead. That means that you need to know exactly what your business processes look like and have a prior idea of the steps that you think might benefit from adding this tool. You cannot simply start utilising UiPath without a good understanding of your existing processes. 

If you try to make use of it as a band aid, you will think you can automate everything. You think it’ll be a great way to cut costs and help you concentrate on the bigger picture. But this is never the case, and this type of attitude is indeed why so many first forays into RPA do not succeed. If you don’t get the process right in the first place, you are just automating a bad process: this is doomed to fail.

You simply must process map to make the most of the RPA you are interested in using, in this case, UiPath.

Why Do I Need Process Mapping with UiPath 

You need to process map what exactly you want UiPath to do. Without a process map, you cannot review your current process or envisage how you want the process to work in the future. Preparation is key, otherwise, you will make a lot of mistakes. This could end up only harming your entire business, as both customers and employees will feel confused and disillusioned with your automation objectives.

Before you even begin contemplating utilizing RPA, if the idea of UiPath and shortening tasks is appealing to you, take the time to see if you understand your own processes as they currently stand. You don’t want to simply purchase something because it sounds appealing, you want to make sure it will actually be useful. Plus, you need to recognise if there are some areas for improvement. 

So map out your business process. 

Take your time and really inspect your business. Connect with your employees and learn what they do in each step of the process and why. Talk to the experts and those who take part in the process every day. Create sub-process maps for smaller processes within the larger ones. This will help you understand how your business is currently working, who is doing what, and what is happening when. 

This will help you better your entire business.

You will find spots where things are slowed down due to bottlenecks, extraneous forms to fill out or steps to complete that no longer make sense, and you will re-examine whether the responsibility is falling on the right shoulders. Or even if you need to complete these steps at all. 

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Business process mapping is ultimately made to constantly improve your processes and your business so that you spend less, make more, and become the most efficient, streamlined organisation possible. 

When bringing in an external tool or product, such as UiPath, or any other RPA, it is imperative that you know exactly why you are doing it and where it would fit. The owners of the tool will make suggestions, but ultimately the one that knows the business process is you. So you need to be certain that you have a clear understanding of your processes, and where and why this tool should be used.

And you want the relevant employees to also know this and learn how to use the new tool. 

You need to have both your current process and your vision with UiPath mapped out. Armed with a map of your current process, you can then create a new one that includes the new steps and eliminates processes that become the purview of RPA. We call the original process the ‘current state’ or As-Is process, and the improved process the ‘future state’ or To-Be process.

By mapping it out yourself, you ensure that you know exactly what is happening when and why, and why decisions were made. Your employees should also be aware of where this new tool fits and why it is there. They will be the ones making use of it and able to tell you if it is indeed completing the role it needs to, or if it is not working as intended.

But how to create a business process map that has UiPath in mind? 

Don’t worry – we’ve got you here at Skore.

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UiPath Process Mapping with Skore 

Skore is a tool that maps business processes in a way that is simple for all involved parties.

With Universal Process Notation as our base, our mapping software makes it easy for all team members to collaborate and follow along as you build processes, from stakeholders to front-facing employees. This is thanks in large part to our simplistic approach to business mapping.

There are a few key questions that need to be answered when creating a process map, and they are what, why, and who. All of these questions are easily addressed in our maps via the use of boxes, and as all of our maps are chronologically organized, the order of the steps is visible as well. 

Furthermore, you can create sub-processes for each box, so that the steps needed previously can also be accessed. And, Skore will help you identify spots for improvement easily by helping you step back and have a bird’s eye view of your processes. Finding bumps or holes in your process that could be filled with an RPA such as UiPath becomes easy from there.

Not convinced yet? 

Take a look at our RPA-focused case study with Lawrence & Wedlock, a leading intelligent automation services provider. By using Skore’s Robotic Asses model, they were able to cut-down process discovery time by an entire week. 

The team was so impressed, they actually added Skore to their offerings for clients!

Thanks to our collaboration with such a cutting-edge company, Skore was able to prove itself as a forward-thinking product, and we created a process template for all RPAs – including UiPath!

Because the process to incorporate an RPA into your own existing business processes also needs to be considered. It may be a one-time process, or you may end up using it several times – regardless, it is still good to create it and document it in a process library.

Indeed, as you’re preparing and building your processes for improvement that feature your new tool, compiling everything into a process library for your organisation’s knowledge to build upon is a good idea. And something else you can easily do with Skore.

So that the next time you’re looking for the best way to add an RPA such as UiPath, you can simply consult your library. You will be able to figure out if it is indeed necessary, what problem it would solve, and where exactly you picture it fitting within your processes.

Conclusion 

At Skore, we want your processes to be the best they can be, so that your business can flourish as well.

Sometimes, this means adding automation tools to improve efficiency. This may sound good and easy at first, but can prove draining if not use correctly.

Make the right decision by mapping RPAs such as UiPath into your processes the right way. 

We’re happy to show you how.

Just get in touch to find out more!

Actually you may not need to. We’ve come across a pattern at Skore with our customers that we wanted to share to help others in a similar boat.

Often, one of our clients is looking for help to understand their business processes. Either there’s re-structuring happening at the company, there’s been a business boom and they need to re-organise, the company is trying to find ways to save money, or customer feedback has led them to try to re-evaluate what they’re doing. 

Whatever it is, their business processes need to be mapped out and understood. And frequently the person in charge of doing so in the company feels overwhelmed by the task. They opt to look externally and hire a business process consultant instead.

Once they come across our product here at Skore, however, they quickly learn: they never needed to hire an external consultant at all.

What is an External Process Consultant & Why Hire Them 

A business process consultant is a specialist in identifying spaces in a business’s processes that can be improved upon. Once they find a step in a process that can be improved, they will create an alternative process and a plan to get your business to adopt that process.

They will demonstrate exceptional skills in communication, analysis, and interpersonal relations. This is because they are the ones that often have to get everyone to agree that a new process is necessary and how to go about changing it. 

Process consultants need to communicate with everyone from stakeholders to front-line workers that the process needs to be changed and how to change it. This will frequently ruffle feathers, so without top-notch communication skills, a business process consultant will fail.

They will typically evaluate the following in your business:

• Internal time management: what are you spending too much time on?
• Internal resources’ management: are you spending too much? 
• Bottlenecks in the processes: what is slowing things down or complicating things?
• Redundant processes: what is no longer necessary?
• Physical activities that elongate the work process, for example: are you relying too much on driving from warehouse to the shop?
• Ineffective communication: what are the communication channels in use and how to better them?

Within these factors, they find places where time or costs can be cut. This can be anything from changing your sourcing location to finding a job to be redundant, to simply adding a form or automation to an aspect of your business processes.

Such a role is nearly always external.

This means that you are bringing in someone from outside the organisation to offer a fresh pair of eyes on what you’re doing. By bringing them in, you alleviate the need for your employees to take on the task, and you have a fresh pair of eyes to offer fresh ideas.

But bringing in someone external might not always be the answer.

The Problems with Hiring Process Consultants 

The first thing to know about hiring an external process consultant is that it will cost you a pretty penny. These are highly skilled individuals with very specific abilities that purportedly make the businesses they serve generous amounts of money. They place a high value on their time and efforts, as they should. 

But before you simply pass on your process management and improvement needs to them, it’s worth making sure that you know what you’re getting yourself into.

You will have to be comfortable sharing a lot of information about your business with this individual. Obviously, there will be legal documents that you will need to create and have the consultant sign, both for their contract and fee and for your own protection.

You and your employees will have to be comfortable being scrutinized by an external consultant. While they are all good at communicating with teams to avoid any unnecessary tension, the tension will be felt regardless. After all, the possibility exists that a consultant may find certain processes, and therefore jobs, redundant. 

Furthermore, they’ll have to train employees on new methods, and this itself will often cause friction coming from someone unrelated to the business.

This leads us to the crux of the matter. 

You’re bringing in someone wholly unfamiliar with your business to help you improve on certain aspects of it. A fresh set of eyes may be well and good for their particular project with you, but what happens when they leave?

They’ve shown you where your existing process could use improvements and created a whole new process for you to follow. Great!

But what about other parts of your business that could use the same boost? What happens the next time you need to improve a process?

Process improvement is a continuous task, so it will not be enough to have someone with the expertise come in and do it for you once. Are you willing to spend on hiring an external consultant each time you need your processes improved, given what they cost?

While consultants are said to do the necessary work quickly to give you the results you’re after faster, you’re losing out on the knowledge and skill required to truly make an impact in your business. If you’re willing to delegate the task to employees in your organisation, they would be just as able to do it, with the right tools at their disposal.

You could end up with an internal process library to refer to going forward to automate and improve your processes, onboard new clients, train your employees, and so on. No more paying an external consultant exorbitant fees to simply map out your processes and find spots to improve when you have the knowledge and skill in your own team.

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Alternatives to Hiring an External Process Consultant 

The best alternative to hiring an external process business consultant? Taking on the job internally.

Learn how to map processes to learn about your business and find improvement spots internally so that the knowledge is never lost and instead built upon. It means that every time you need to go through it again, you’ve got a documented history of changes you can refer to and everyone can understand.

And the best way to do this?

With the right toolkit, of course. 

Of the tools under your belt, your starting point for process improvement should always be Skore.

(Can’t be biased when it’s true!)

With Skore, anyone is able to map out a process from a blank canvas. 

Thanks to the use of Universal Process Notation in our software, process improvement has never been easier.

We’ve realized how complicated other mapping methods can be, so when it came to building our own, we focused on simplicity. Everyone involved in the process, from a stakeholder to a front-line worker, should be able to understand what is happening when and who is in charge of what. These three questions are the core of any well-mapped process.

To get a better understanding of what a finished mapping process template looks like, you can head over to our template library. A great starting point is our business on a page template, but we also have more specific templates available, such as the payroll and procure-to-pay processes.

From these templates, you can easily start building your own process library specific to your business and its needs. You will notice that all the information required is easily viewable, and the steps are understood. Should there be a sub-process, it is easy to map as well, and by simply clicking on the step that needs a sub-process you can access it.

But don’t just take our word for it – take a look at our client’s successes by taking it upon themselves to map their own processes:

Carte Blanche Group’s Design Engineer, Stuart Morgan, had this to say about using Skore:

“​​We really understood through Skore that we could clean up a messy process. It has saved us a huge amount of time by streamlining our flow of activity and understanding that, by resolving issues earlier on in the process, we could make it easier for our people to do their jobs.”

They didn’t look externally but took it upon themselves to understand their existing process, what was wrong with it, and what could be improved. And Skore was the perfect tool for it.

Bovis Homes turned to Skore when it needed to restructure its processes following unprecedented growth. Group Head of Internal Audit and Risk Chris Jones stated:

“Skore has the ability to take complexity away from the resulting diagram while retaining all the necessary detail. It makes it easy to communicate and share standard processes and key control points.”

Conclusion 

While bringing in an expert is a good idea when renovating your home, it’s not always necessary. And it’s the same in business. 

Provided you have the right tools at your disposal, of course.

At Skore, we created our product with the mindset that anyone can use and understand it for process mapping. Business processes need to be constantly updated and improved upon, and at some point, everyone in your organisation will be affected by them. 

Rather than hiring an expensive expert, why not take a crack at it yourself and build the knowledge within your company?

Get in touch with us and we will show you how!

A new customer is always something to celebrate.

It indicates new revenue is coming into your company. You and your employees have more projects to look forward to. It might lead to a deeper partnership in the future. 

We’ve had this happen to us here at Skore with our clients: start with a customer and service provider relationship, and then realise we can accomplish so much more together.

The reason everything goes so smoothly for us is that we have a crystal clear onboarding process for new customers, and we’d like to share it with you.

What Is an Onboarding Process 

Generally, when people think of onboarding, they think about onboarding a new employee.

In general, onboarding refers to the process of adding a new part to the overall machine that is your business. A new employee, a new customer, a new process – all of these need to be onboarded correctly. 

They must slot in like a puzzle piece.

Anything less, and your business will suffer for it. New employees will be dissatisfied and look to leave, and new customers will not last very long.

You need to make sure in all cases that the process flows neatly, is not overwhelming, and feels personal to the user. It has to be a core part of your business processes and cannot be something you tack on or improvise each time. That way only failure lies.

A great onboarding process will help you convert, activate, retain and expand the services or products that your client uses.

To convert, you want to make sure your customers positively interact with your company. Send them a personalised welcome email with further information and clear instructions about how to proceed. Guide them through using your product or service, in-person or online, so they feel comfortable and confident.

Once they realise how key your business is to their needs, it will activate them. They will find aspects of your product or service that are key for their daily tasks and that cannot be done without your business. Make sure that the value you provide is seen very clearly in the first month.

You want to retain your customers. Ensure that they are satisfied with your offer and are making the most of it. If one of your key value points is not being used within that first month, find out why – they are your best sellers and good indicators of the customer hanging around. 

Finally, once that first month is up, it’s time to try expanding. Offer additional services or products your customers can use or try that will be appealing to them on top of the regular services you give them. Plus you want to make sure that customer knows what to do next, a great onboarding process means you’ve developed a great relationship and they are ready to take the next planned steps.

But always personalise it so it applies to their particular needs. Any step out of line could leave you with one less customer in your portfolio.

To further help you we’ve compiled some common mistakes the onboarding process for new clients runs into, and how to fix them. 

And of course, by the end of this article, we’ll show you how to map this entire process. 

Common Client Onboarding Process Challenges 

A lot has been said about mistakes and problems you may run into when developing your onboarding process. Here are some of the most common, and how to avoid them.

1. Lack of support

It might seem crazy, but in a world where automation is becoming more and more commonplace, some businesses have removed the human element of support entirely.

This is a mistake.

Especially during their onboarding process. 

You want your customers to look forward to learning how to use your product or service. You do not want them to feel frustrated because they cannot reach anyone to provide clarification.

It is a surefire way to lose their business.

Make sure you have a dedicated support team available and ready to help your new customers, always.

2. Lack of communication

Tied to the above, if your customer receives little to no communication from your company, chances are they won’t last long. 

Poor communication can be anything from an automated welcome email that does not make it to them, to not being introduced to the correct point of contact at your company going forward. 

Once your salesperson has successfully made the sale and they have signed the contract, the customer should smoothly and swiftly be transferred over to the correct department in your company. And they should know who they are interacting with and why. It helps them feel seen and accompanied as they learn how to navigate your product or service. 

This is why having these processes mapped out is so important: it provides a visual representation of how this would work.

3. Lack of personalization

No customer is the same as the other. Think of restaurant orders – everyone will get something different and some people will want to change aspects of the dish. It is the same situation here.

Your welcome message should be personalised to each customer. Ideally, so should the different parts of the process. Your team will also learn valuable information from your new customer as the onboarding process continues. 

By the time the possibility of expansion comes up, you will be able to tailor your offer specifically to their needs. It makes a huge difference to offer something that makes sense to them. 

A plumber might not find additional spreadsheet features that interesting, mostly using them for budgeting. On the other hand, an office worker who needs to create presentations for shareholders might find it a lot more appealing.

The more personal you can make the experience, the better your chances at retention and expansion are.

4. Overwhelming your new customer

Finally, we know it is exciting to welcome a new customer into the fold. It is a new project, new revenue, and potentially a new avenue to explore.

But your new customer is not necessarily going to be as familiar as you with your product or service, so you have to introduce all the parts gradually. Overwhelming your new customer with information is not the way to go.

It makes the entire onboarding process tedious, long, and complicated for your customers. Simplify by only introducing new concepts and elements as they begin to feel confident and comfortable with the ones introduced previously. Slowly build up to the more important and useful features of your product or service. 

This way you keep their attention and demonstrate the value of your business to them, making it far more likely to retain your customers in the long run.

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Mapping Out Your Onboarding Process for a New Customer 

Mapping is what we do here at Skore.

It helps our clients understand how things are working. Mapping locates if there are mistakes, where they are and how to fix them, and how to optimise and improve the business. It gets everyone on the same page and leads to success. 

Because we believe in mapping as a tool so much, we’ve provided a library full of templates for the common processes businesses need to have in place to survive. They serve as a taste of what Skore can do for you, and they can be previewed easily and freely – but you can also always get in touch to learn more!

Our Onboard New Customer template is one such freely previewed sample.

Starting with a trigger of a customer signing off, the process takes you through the first month of your new customer’s experience. You will notice that  we’ve included the initial action which then leads to a box with the next step and the responsible parties outlined below. There is then a handover with another arrow to the following step. 

The steps outlined in this onboarding process map correlate to the convert, activate, and retain factors of a successful client onboarding process. Expansion can then take place at any point going forward and the client would go through a similar onboarding process then.

You convert by getting in touch and ensuring all the paperwork has gone through correctly and testing your product or service. Your employees begin training your new customer’s employees on your product or service, personalising the process and creating ample opportunities for the activate moment where they realize how key you are to their success. Your employees go on to provide support for the first month, ensuring that the new customer feels heard and taken care of to make retention more likely. 

While this may all seem obvious, without having it mapped out and accessible in this way, there are several moments where things can go wrong. And it also helps you find moments where certain tasks can be automated or removed if they are no longer needed. Plus it ensures that you know exactly who is responsible for each step and what should happen next.

As always with Skore, you can also create a process within a process. This is an option you won’t come across in other mapping alternatives.

Take a look at the second box on the template…

Once the agreement is signed and has taken place, it is time to perform the initial setup. There is a sub-process to get this done, and by clicking on the arrow it is possible to see the more detailed sub-process as well. In that sub-process, there is even a different role responsible for one of the actions. 

It would be confusing to map it in the larger process, so the possibility of visualizing it in this manner is a lot clearer and more pleasing to the eye. In a larger setting with shareholders that have to be able to follow along, displaying the processes in this way makes it easy for everyone to follow along. It means you can keep your process simply to one page whilst including all the detail you need to make it a success.

This unique feature we provide makes the map all the more useful for any business out there struggling to onboard their new clients successfully. 

Conclusion 

New customers are always great, but you need to take care of them accordingly.

One wrong move during onboarding can absolutely ruin your chances at retention and expansion – this is the last thing you want.

You can avoid this anxiety by having your onboarding process for new customers clearly mapped out. Ensure everyone is doing what they are supposed to do at the right time, and your clients will feel looked after and heard. 

Skore is happy to provide you with the tools you need to ensure you’re successful.

Get in touch with us to discover Skore for yourself. 

UPN stands for Universal Process Notation and BPMN stands for Business Process Model Notation. They are both types of mapping notations used in the business world to represent processes. 

Mapping processes is an important step for businesses. It allows them to know what is happening, when it is happening, and who is in charge of it happening. With this information, businesses can then determine where they can optimise their current processes.

It helps organisations find places to cut costs, save more, and speed up or automate processes.

BPMN has been a popular choice for process mapping profesionals as a mapping notation for quite some time, but UPN has become a favourite in recent years. Here at Skore we use UPN for our software, and in this article, we will make the case for why that is.

Pros and Cons of BPMN

BPMN has been around since 2004. Since 2005, the Object Management Group (OMG) consortium has ensured that there is a standardized notation and process.

It means that there is an overarching authority anyone can turn to when they have questions or complications designing the processes using this notation. This is important, as the main selling point for this notation is that it is unifying for all processes. 

BPMN notation-style is viewed as comprehensive and all-encompassing. 

It makes use of a wide range of shapes and symbols to more accurately and fully communicates your processes on your diagrams. By using this notation, everyone should be in agreement about the meaning.

While all of this seems quite good, there is definitely room for improvement.

Because BPMN is tied to a larger, non-profit organisation (OMG) that must maintain a certain level of prestige, the training required to develop such a chart is lengthy. To give you an idea, a 7.1 MB PDF of 530 pages was needed back in 2016 to learn how to use the software.

Why so long?

Well, the seemingly endless symbols and notation types mean that those who want to use the notation correctly must be versed in all of them. And that takes time to master.

BPMN relies on symbol precision for the processes to be communicated accurately. Machines can be programmed to recognize and associate certain symbols with the corresponding action. Humans, on the other hand, may arbitrarily disagree with the machine and with the original intention behind the symbol’s use. 

It leaves room for error and interpretation – the same issues BPMN is supposed to fix.

As a result of all these possibilities, BPMN is often very visually complex. So you need to be well-trained to develop and understand the diagrams and flowcharts developed. That stakeholder may be able to follow along with the chart during the meeting being led by a business analyst. 

But the moment they’re at home trying to decipher it again? Good luck…

Not to mention, because of how complex the charts can get, important information can end up on the cutting room floor. This means that you might be skipping process information or steps during the overall design. BPMN cannot cover all potential processes and possibilities without it becoming messy. Both are due to a lack of space and too many notations and symbols available.

BPMN is also organised by the owner of the action as opposed to in the chronological order of steps attached to a process. When an analysis of a process takes place, teams will spend time reading the full title of the action box. They need to confirm that they are all on the same page instead of organically following along to the next step.

This type of structure, coupled with the visual complexity and infinite symbol possibilities, means that not only is information omitted from the process, but actions and steps lack context. It opens up room for too many interpretations and complexities when it comes to developing streamlined, easy-to-follow, and understandable processes.

None of what it promises ends up being correct.

Instead, you might find all of this by using UPN.

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Pros and Cons of UPN

At Skore, we make no secret of the fact that we use UPN for our software.

We’ve written about UPN before; to introduce it to our audience, to explain why it’s great for workshops, why it is indeed the best option for process improvement methodologies, and as an alternative to several other types of process management notation.

We love UPN, and we’re not afraid to admit it.

It lends itself well to the software model and helps keep everyone in line and in agreement.

UPN is a lot easier for everyone to follow along with than BPMN. There is no need to memorize and learn an entire set of very specific, yet debatable symbols. And the entire process is organized chronologically. 

You can take a look at our template library for some free previews to truly understand the simplicity we offer thanks to UPN.

Roles are clearly defined and assigned. There is no room for interpretation or doubts regarding who is in charge of what at what point of the process.

Furthermore, our software at Skore permits our users to create sub-processes within the larger process. This means that it is possible to have an overarching process dedicated to, for example, new customer onboarding, and have a smaller sub-process be part of it. This means you can keep your processes simple and clean without having to create huge canvases to include every single step. Instead of having one very long and messy process you can create a hierarchy and go down to sub-processes for all the detail.

It is not taxing or confusing visually, and you are able to add all of this important information seamlessly and easily. Your clients and stakeholders can easily follow along as you explain what happens during each step, even if you have to access a sub-process.

And we are not the only ones touting UPN as the true notation for business processes. From white papers to sales specialists to process consultants, more and more people are becoming aware of the benefits of UPN when it comes to business process mapping.

When looking at our client’s successes, it’s not hard to see why.

From Change Platform Consulting’s need to communicate with the NHS, a quite rigid and unchanging institution, to Scrutton Bland’s approach to involving their clients directly – all of our clients have seen great benefits in utilizing our UPN-based software. Common threads of simplicity, communication, and clarity can be found as great aspects of our product in our case studies.

Skore’s UPN focus has resulted in companies being able to cut discovery times by half, proven integral to understanding between companies and their clients, become the base for an entire restructuring process, and has even led to new, fruitful partnerships.

If there is one con to UPN as a notation system, it is that it is not as widely used yet. Many business analysts continue to train in BPMN, learning all the symbols and their meanings and then having to explain complicated diagrams to their employers.

But at Skore, we avoid all of the confusion and go straight to solving.

UPN not being as easy to find simply means we have a great, avant-garde product in our pocket you want to jump on before it is too late. 

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Conclusion

Depending on your needs, BPMN or UPN might be the way to go.

What is absolutely true is that UPN is the simpler option of the two, which can go a long way when it comes to communication with clients and stakeholders.

Still not 100% convinced?

Worry not!

At Skore, we believe in our product and UPN so much, that we’re happy to give anyone interested the opportunity to try Skore. 

Contact us for more information!

When you’re looking for a new computer or phone with the exact specs you need, you often look online first, just to have an idea of what is out there. Having found something you are happy with and with a design you like, you select it and then head to the check-out portion of the website. 

What follows are the process windows, prompting you to fill in your shipping, billing, and payment information to finalise your order. Once everything is filled out, your portion of the purchase is complete, but the order continues to flow through the company as part of a larger process.

This is the order to cash process.

What Is Order to Cash 

Order to Cash, often referred to as O2C or OTC, is the process your business uses to receive, process, manage, and complete client orders. It is not limited to the a computer or phone: it includes any online purchase you can think of, from video games to streaming services to edible glitter (yes, really).

While to customers this seems like an easy, seamless process, to you as a business it is not. You want to be as clear as possible about what is happening when, and who is in charge of doing what.

The process has eight steps, which are as follows:

1. Order management refers to when the order is received from the customer. As soon as the order is received, confirmation must be sent to the customer and steps should begin on your end as a business to complete the order.

2. Credit management means that as soon as the order is placed and received, either by automating or through thorough checks, you ensure that the customer’s credit is approved. It is best that this is automated except for particular cases that require a more intense check.

3. Order fulfillment is next. Tied to your automated credit management system you should have automated inventory to ensure that clients are purchasing products or services that are indeed available. Any order that is approved should be presented in a standardized manner and legible for all associates (for instance using notation such as UPN) so that any of them can begin working on putting the order together. It is best that this is electronic as paper orders have been proven to lead to greater issues down the line.

4. Order shipping, as the name suggests, refers to the successful shipment and arrival of the order to the customer. This is the part of the process most prone to the effect of good logistics for success. Data and feedback from this portion of the process are extremely important and useful when it comes to optimisation.

5. Customer invoicing allows the Finance department to forecast cashflows and plan expenses accordingly. Invoicing systems need to receive accurate information from front-line staff, including order specifics, costs, credit terms, order date, and shipping date to generate invoices correctly and without delay.

6. Accounts receivable is the step in which the revenue is recognised as received from the customer as the invoice has been sent. It is during this step that issues with payments will come up if unpaid past a certain amount of time, or if there is an issue with an invoice itself. 

7. Payment collection is when the payment is confirmed as received from the customer to your business. A problem businesses may run into here is when payment collection is slower and shows as unpaid for the customer, even if the money is already on its way or has, indeed, been received. Alternatively, if the money has indeed not been received, this is also something that your Finance team should be aware of to forecast expenses.

8. Reporting and data management is the feedback you receive from your customers regarding the entire process, as well as an understanding of how the process is working. It helps you as a business find where you can optimise the process further by lowering costs or the time it takes. And it gives you an idea of how your customers are reacting. 

Why Is Having an Order to Cash Process Important

Having your O2C process mapped out clearly is extremely important for any business that wishes to be successful. With a well-established, optimised order to cash process, you are able to avoid the pitfalls that process improvement methodologies such as the Seven Wastes or the 5 S’s warn against.

If done well, a good O2C process will:

• Streamline the entire process for your customers, making them happy and more likely to use your services again.
• Reduce waiting time for your customers, once again ensuring that you retain customers.
• Minimize the need for customers to interact with customer service representatives, giving your team of reps time to focus on the larger issues.
• Ensure that orders are fulfilled accurately and in a timely manner from the first moment they are made.
• The conversion of receivables and payment collections from customers is quick and there are few delays.
• Avoid backorders and ensure you have enough products to meet demand.
• Have enough information for Finance to forecast expenditure and debt going forward.
• Avoid information re-entry and overload, and order re-entry and overload.
• Ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to what order fulfillment means.
• Improve data reporting and feedback for analysis for optimisation purposes.

With a good, updated order to cash process, you ensure that you are painting an accurate picture of what your current situation is at all times so that you can predict future needs. You know what products are working and which ones aren’t, and why this is. You learn what parts of the process are maybe failing or where they could be improved.

For instance, if the princess doll children are desperate for is taking too long to ship out because dress materials are sourced from far away, then looking into options closer to where it is assembled is an idea. 

You also want to ensure that you have enough stock of the dolls to properly meet the demands and orders – you do not want to have to email back a customer telling them you’ve run out after they have paid. 

And when it comes to cutting down time, it is always a good idea to review how you are shipping them out. Are you doing this directly or outsourcing? If it is a third-party company, is it slow and costing a lot? Are there other options you can consider? 

These are some of the instances that come to light from having a good order to cash process in place.

And the best way to see it all is by mapping out the process.

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Mapping the Order to Cash Process 

Mapping out your process provides you with an understanding of what exactly is happening in your business. Doing this is incredibly important at every stage of your organisation, so that you know how things are currently being done. It provides you with a bird’s eye view of how things are working, and this gives you the opportunity to find places for improvement.

At Skore, this is our bread and butter: helping organisations and businesses figure out how they are currently getting things done, and how they can then do it all better.

By using Universal Process Notation, and clearly labelled maps, organisations the world over can benefit from our services. Not only at the stakeholder level, but all the way down to front-line workers. Through our maps, everyone that needs to know about each process is involved and can understand what their involvement entails. 

Businesses need to have clear processes in place if they want to succeed – this is not a question. Having these accessible to all relevant parties in a process library via our software is a great way to make sure your business is working optimally. You always know what is happening, when, and who is in charge of it.

We believe in our process mapping tool so much, that we offer free templates for organisations or small businesses to use as needed. One such template is the order to cash process template.

On the template, all the steps outlined above under the eight numbers are visible, as we have, you can name them in a way that’s relevant to your organisation. You can see the starting point trigger of the process is the customer making the request, leading to the first step of ‘process orders’, or ‘order management’. Below the step, there is the title of the person responsible for ensuring that the step is completed. You can also find an attachment with further instructions and requirements related to the action. 

The process continues in the output of the contract being agreed to with the customer. It then moves on to the next step, credit management, with the handover going to the Credit controller. The process then continues to flow into each step accordingly, and the parallels to the eight steps of the process outlined above are easy to draw.

Below the main process, there are two smaller processes with different starting triggers. They include a process focused on inventory checks based on customer orders, and the data and feedback process to improve other parts of the process as a whole.

Skore allows you to visualize this entire process in this template, and to add the relevant information of those involved throughout its entirety. 

And we would love for you to try it out for free! 

See what you learn about your existing procedures and what can be improved. After all, order to cash is one process you want to have as much information about as possible.

Conclusion

The order to cash process is an incredibly important part of your business and one that should not be forgotten or mishandled in any way.

Without a clear procedure: 

• You will spend more than needed
• There will be long waiting periods
• Your customers will feel neglected and refuse to buy again
• Forecasting future expenditure and debt will be impossible. 

You will not be successful unless you have a clear, step-by-step process and accountability within that process.

Skore understands this and wants to help you succeed. This is why we have provided you with a free template that you can use to map out your current O2C process so that you can find places for improvement and optimisation.

If you’re interested in more than the templates currently available on our site, get in touch with us for a free trial of the product!

One thing top companies have in common? Great business processes. 

Without spelled out, defined business processes, your company will find itself confused, your employees will be doing extra work, and you will lose out by overspending. 

To avoid that, you want to have great business processes, which you can define by using a business process mapping tool. In the past, this may have been done with sticky notes and a pen, but today, business process mapping software is available and far more useful.

Let’s go over how to make the most of your business process mapping software.

Why Do You Need Business Process Mapping Software? 

Firstly, let’s review why you need business process mapping in the first place. From there, it is easy to know why you require it in a software format for your business.

Processes Need to Be Mapped

The reality is that a business that does not map its processes is likely losing out on revenue. 

They don’t know it yet, but there is a clog somewhere in the wheels of the machine that make up their business processes that is slowing everything down or costing too much. And the moment something happens, it can make the whole machine stop, taking everyone by surprise.

How to avoid this? You should have a clear understanding of what your current business processes are that are updated as soon as something changes and that can be reviewed often. The best way to do this is to have a business process map.

By mapping out processes, businesses can understand how they are currently working, visualise their processes, and find spaces to improve them. Improving business processes can be anything from finding steps that can be removed to looking for a different material or way to do something related to manufacturing. Generally, to improve on an existing process you want to address overspending money or time on a particular part of the process, and find a way to cut either of those back.

For example, an employee might be spending an entire morning every week on a spreadsheet that then gets sent to the rest of the team. The spreadsheet can be anything from weekly revenue or costs to inventory. As it is weekly, however, no one on the team is really reading it or using it with that high frequency. They have not realised that this particular step is redundant to their actual goals and that, if taken out, would give this employee an additional four hours per week to work on other tasks.

But they would never be able to arrive at this conclusion without seeing it mapped out as part of a process. Mapping them out allows teams to remove themselves from the day-to-day tasks and really take a look at the larger picture. In so doing, they can find the spots that need to be improved upon to save money and time for the business. 

Software Helps Align Teams

Clearly, we can see that processes need to be mapped, and this should happen regularly. It helps businesses review what they are spending money and time on, and where that spending can be cut to benefit the business.

But these maps shouldn’t be kept in filing cabinets or compilations of sticky notes that someone has to piece together many years later. It’s the twenty-first century, and business process mapping software absolutely exists to make your life easier.

Not only does software such as Skore help you visualize and map the processes so that you can find places to improve, but it does so in a way that fosters team collaboration.

Skore’s software asks for all processes to have someone assigned to them to complete the task. By involving all your employees throughout the processes, you ensure that everyone knows what they have to do, and when. You share the correct information with the right employees so that they are informed. Your team is therefore aligned with the new processes and ready to go.

Especially because at Skore we also rely on UPN – Universal Process Notation. As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, UPN is a great way to avoid conflict or disagreements in terms of processes, since all the shapescan only mean one thing. Everyone will arrive at the same conclusion, there can be no differing interpretations of how a process should work. 

A great example of how business process mapping software helps align teams is our work with our client Bovis Homes. Following a period of rapid growth, they had to once again return to basics for all their processes, and align teams in several locations throughout the UK with these new processes. By using Skore, they have been able to slowly but surely build business processes that ensure that safety and health are their top concern.

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What to Use Business Process Mapping Software For 

So now that we’ve reviewed business process mapping and why it is important, let’s review where and how using it as software is the right step.

Of Course, Process Mapping

The first thing you use business process mapping software for is process mapping – this is an easy one.

We’ve gone over how to effectively map out a business process previously, but let’s do a quick review. To map out a process effectively, you need to know: where it falls in the general company processes, who is directly involved at each stage, what the final goal for this particular process is, and how much time is spent on each step.

Once you have these answers, you can ask additional questions to get more information and details out of your team that provides a fuller picture of the process in question. You would want to know how much money and resources are being allocated to this particular section of the process, and what the rationale behind the amounts is.

You want to have as much information laid out as possible, and to visualize it, software is a much better tool. No more endless notes on a whiteboard or on sticky notes, just all laid out in a visually appealing, easy-to-understand way, and it can be done fully remote, which is where we are heading.

With Skore, attaching informational documentation to parts of the process is a piece of cake, and you can edit who can access what, so only those directly involved can see it all.

By switching over to mapping out processes on Skore, our client Carte Blanche was able to understand how their organisation had changed, and how to work on improving their previous processes to work with these changes. They no longer had to rely on antiquated methods or software systems – Skore helped them re-define their processes and re-orient them towards their new goals, and it was all incredibly simple.

Highlight, a monitoring platform that helps clients find the best software solutions on the market, began to use Skore to understand how the departments of the business were speaking to each other. They also wanted to have the processes explained visually and made available to all that needed to know, and not just kept in one employee’s head. 

By utilising software instead of old-school methods, they were able to build and collaborate on building the business processes that had so far not been written down anywhere. This allowed them to not only have them available for future reference, but to also find spots where there was space for improvement. And it was all saved within Skore’s software.

Collaborating on All Parts of the Process

Software allows you to collaborate with your team throughout all the process building, analysing, and improvement. Unlike when you had to rely on paper and pen, software such as Skore keeps everything in one place that can be edited by the team and easily accessed. And because we use UPN, there is no possibility of confusion or differing interpretations of what is meant where.

Not only can you work together to visualize what is happening, how, where, and when, but you can also agree on who and add any additional necessary information, documentation, or rationale behind each choice. By having it all plainly available, it ensures that should the need exist for someone else to step up to a defined role, they can simply study the sections of the processes assigned to them

You can build your processes back up collaboratively with Skore, as our clients have found and put to use.

Several of our clients are consultants, and while they use Skore to evaluate and help improve their own processes, the biggest takeaway is helping their own clients. By utilising Skore, they are able to build their client’s processes and visualise them together with them. They can then start making additional business process maps that demonstrate what the different outcomes would be depending on what they decide to change.

It is a lot easier to have a conversation with a client trying to figure out and convince them of what to change when they can tangibly see it and add to it on Skore. It becomes a lot more collaborative, not just within the team but also with their clients, and helps build bridges and relationships that are stronger as a result as well.

This collaborative part of the equation is only possible by utilising business process mapping software like Skore, and would be impossible to do on paper unless you did it over several days in one sitting with all pertinent stakeholders. Instead, by doing it via software you can map the process in front of the stakeholders in one workshop and get them to sign off on the process there and then. 

Conclusion

Business process mapping is still a necessity, but not one that has to be done on pen and paper anymore.

Software exists that makes the entire procedure a lot more collaborative and easier to understand for all members of the company. 

And while there are numerous examples out there, here at Skore we know we have the best, most encompassing product for business process mapping software on the market. From user-friendly design to a collaborative space using UPN – we have it all!

Want to learn how we can help your business processes? Book a demo today!

The Swim Lane Diagram is just one of several forms of business process mapping that companies can implement. 

As it has been around since 1940, but was first described in 1990, it is on the older side of the mapping styles available, but it is one that has remained constant for some time. Especially as we head into the digital age, more and more companies are revising and revamping their business processes and coming across old Swim Lane Diagrams used in the past. 

While it was well and good for the 1940s, the tools available today for business process mapping software have a lot more to offer these companies than whiteboards – let’s take a look at how. 

Why Do Teams Use the Swim Lane Diagram?

To understand the alternatives to the Swim Lane Diagram, we first need to understand why it was used in the first place. 

Swim Lane Diagrams are different from other types of flow diagrams because they are separated into different lanes parallel to each other on the chart. Typically, a lane will represent a single person or department, with specific activities assigned to each. The activities are then connected to each other with arrows to explain the order.

They work best when companies have multiple departments working together on the same process to divide who is responsible for what. So if a team is responsible for landscaping, the building team knows they should be in touch with them at specific parts of the process to ensure everything is going well – and it would be reflected in the chart.

Having all this information spread out on the map, it encourages cooperation and communication between team members of different departments throughout the process. It’s a great way to avoid miscommunication – in theory.

Their main purpose, beyond ensuring everyone knows who is responsible for what part of the process, is being able to find what parts of the process are being delayed or being affected by their current capabilities.

How Do Teams Currently Use the Swim Lane Diagram? 

Currently, Swim Lane Diagrams are used either for specific, similar processes amongst various teams or departments, for product development, marketing, and sales, or for supply chain management logistics.

Swim Lane Diagrams are results-oriented, with the optimisation of business processes as the final goal.

There are four steps to setting up a Swim Lane Diagram: 

• Identifying those involved in the process and diagram to follow
• Establishing the starting point for the process
• Completing the diagram based on the current process
• Search for places where the process can be optimised

By identifying everyone involved in the process, whether they are individuals, teams, or departments, you know how many lanes your diagram will have. The optimal number of lanes involved in a single process should be between four and twelve – anything else, and it becomes quite chaotic.

Then you identify the starting point of the process you are analysing. It can be a customer making an order, a decision from upper management, or a monthly task that needs to get completed. You just need to know where to start, as that is the lane you then develop the rest of the map from.

Then you get to the true meat of the issue – completing the diagram. In an ideal situation, all the processes would be chronological, and you could simply keep adding them to the different lanes with arrows. This is typically not the case, however, and you will find a lot of overlap between what departments are doing simultaneously throughout the process. You need to make sure that you are correctly labelling and adding the steps at the right time, and this can turn out to be more challenging than expected to visualise. Take your time with this step and make sure that it is done correctly.

Finally, once you have drawn the process in its entirety, it’s time to analyse and find where you can optimise your existing process. Where are there places where you can cut back on time or cost to save your company both time and money. 

Possible outcomes are the realisation that you have too many unnecessary processes or bureaucratic checks, which are costing you precious time and resources that could be better used elsewhere. Alternatively, you might find out you have too few processes or actions in place, which leads to lower productivity and losses.

Swim Lane Diagrams allow companies to visualize all of this at once.

What Are the Drawbacks of the Swim Lane Diagram? 

While a Swim Lane Diagram can be useful, there are some drawbacks.

Firstly, there is a limit to the number of roles you can represent in a process – there is simply a lack of page real estate in this type of diagram for them to be comprehensive enough. This makes it difficult to include responsibilities in a matrix such as RACI. If they are included, the visual focus of the diagram becomes the roles and not the flow of the process. 

Secondly, due to the difficulty of assigning roles in Swim Lane, activities will become duplicated when multiple roles work on the same activities. This makes the entire process look more complicated than it actually is, which can be difficult to anyone reading it. Such a complication then results in people over simplifying the process to make it understandable, but this leaves key components out.

Thirdly, when handovers of processes span multiple lanes, the process becomes confusing. If we add to this the issues with demonstrating the roles in the process and the fact that multiple roles may work on the same activity, the issue is compounding. And with the lack of handovers, there is also a lack of value distinction. Why is this process being done? What does the company gain from it?

Fourth, tied to the above points, is that you can only have so many lanes available. As I mentioned previously, four to twelve is the best number to work with. But sometimes, this might not be enough. As you are deciding on how many lanes you are willing to include, you end up compromising on certain parts of the diagram, hence losing out on visualising the process in its entirety. Valuable information is then lost or relegated as unimportant.

Fifth, given the above, it is much more difficult for these diagrams to be completed collaboratively in a process workshop. Swim Lane Diagrams can become excessively complicated if there are too many lanes and steps involved, and this can lead to misunderstandings about what is happening when and who has to do it. 

Especially because it is not only the people directly involved in the process that need to understand it, but stakeholders that are not specifically involved or specialists in that section of the process.

Sixth, Swim Lane Diagrams are more limited. While they can cover one process in its entirety, if you want to have a big picture approach or even zoom in on a specific process, it does not lend itself well to working in this way. 

Finally, these diagrams are effectively the operations manual of the business. If there is any concern or issue in understanding and following along, either due to the passage of time or different interpretations of how something should be done, this can pose a big problem. You need everyone to be on the same page about each specific process and how it aligns with your most current company goals and mission. Swim Lane Diagrams are often not dynamic enough for this.

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How UPN And Skore Are an Alternative to the Swim Lane Diagram 

UPN stands for Universal Process Notation.

It is what we have based our business process mapping software on here at Skore. The reason for this is the simplicity of UPN when it comes to mapping processes.

What does a UPN diagram look like on Skore? Let’s take a look. 

A clear, initial trigger or input is always placed at the beginning of each process. It is the reasoning of the existence of the process itself. It is immediately followed by the first step or activity that is needed to begin the process. This activity is followed by the output or handover, explaining what the result should look like for this part of the process to move on to the next step or activity.

Under each activity, the roles are clearly defined and outlined. Multiple roles can also be associated with one activity, so everyone knows who is involved and responsible for what, while avoiding activity duplication. Skore goes the extra mile and provides the Role Manager, where you can study what the responsibilities of each role are, as well as their associated activities. It is also possible to study the Handover process in this view as well, to understand how different roles report to each other.

Activities are also organized linearly according to the flow of the process, not the department or team taking charge. No step is missed, and it makes it inherently easier to follow along for everyone involved.

If necessary, Skore and UPN can also create subprocesses below a larger activity. 

Remember how we mentioned you cannot look at the details up close with Swim Lane Diagrams? Well, you can with Skore! 

Smaller sub-processes that need to happen for the larger process to go through can be easily included. If you are looking to hire, there is a difference between the process followed by those at the higher levels of the organisation deciding that an employee needs to be hired, and those at the ground level preparing the hiring materials. With Skore, these two processes can co-exist and be referenced and understood clearly within the same diagram.

And this is highly possible due to Skore’s use of UPN. 

It is one singular style of notation that everyone on the team can be trained on, regardless of their level of expertise when it comes to business process mapping in general. Miscommunications are avoided, and your team always knows what each part of the map means.

You have a process repository you can check in with any time, and this also allows you to have process standardisation throughout your entire company. This ensures that everyone is doing what they should be doing the way you intended because there is no way they can get it wrong.

And when you want to evaluate and analyse what can be done better, or what can be improved, you can constantly take a look at your current process and recalibrate as necessary for the optimal result.

Conclusion 

Mapping out business processes is a need for any organisation that wants to be successful. Without understanding how their business operates, they are sure to lose track of what is happening when, and this will result in losses of time and money that will not return to them. 

Swim Lane Diagrams were designed in the last century as a way to visually map out these processes to help companies see where they can make improvements. But the lack of uniformity could cause more trouble than they are worth.

In the twenty-first century, with UPN it is far easier to get everyone in the same company on board with the current processes, avoiding miscommunication and misunderstandings when it comes to implementing changes. 

At Skore, we use UPN for this exact reason – book your demo to find out how!