Today, Digital Transformation has become an imperative for companies seeking to remain competitive and relevant in an increasingly technological and changing world. This digital revolution encompasses a series of changes and adaptations in the way organizations operate, interact with their customers and employees, and manage their internal processes.
Efficient case and records management has become a fundamental pillar of any organization’s success and competitiveness. Many companies rely on email as the primary channel for receiving, responding to and sharing cases, as well as for maintaining crucial communications with customers, suppliers and other external users. However, this apparent solution can lead to inefficiencies and traceability issues that hinder workflow, decision making and can also lead to compliance issues.
In this article, we will address the fundamental reasons why the use of email accounts for case management can be counterproductive.
In addition, we will present a much more efficient and structured alternative: the implementation of a document management system. We will discover how this solution offers a comprehensive approach to managing documentation and binding communications in the business, improving productivity and raising the quality of service, which translates into a significant competitive advantage in today’s market.
Managing important cases and documents through email can be inefficient. Uploading and downloading documents, searching for specific emails or files in an email manager can be time consuming and impractical, especially when the amount of information increases.
When receiving and managing cases via email, it is easy to lose traceability and evidence of responses and communications. Using individual accounts instead of a centralized channel makes it even more difficult to track case management, which can lead to problems in decision making and customer service.
Email-based case management makes it difficult to accurately track service times. Without a clear view of when a case was received, by whom and when it was answered and its status, it is difficult to measure and improve response times, which can affect customer satisfaction.
This situation is serious if we think of cases in which by law, certain response or resolution times must be met: guardianships, complaint channels, data protection or security incidents, etc.
The information received by email often lacks structure, which makes it difficult to automate and process. In addition, in many cases, not all the necessary information is received from the first email, which delays the process and can generate errors in its management.
Email can be vulnerable in terms of security and data privacy. Attachments can be exposed to risk of loss or unauthorized access, jeopardizing the confidentiality of information. It is also easy to receive malware via email.
To improve the management of cases, files and important documents, it is essential to use a document management system suited to the needs of each company. Below are some key actions:
Linking email accounts with the document manager so that emails are registered directly in the platform, allowing you to generate case numbers and count the time since they were received, is a dynamic that can be useful when integrating the information you want to process through several channels.
For Microsoft users, if they use a platform such as Athento, they can upload documents from Outlook.
Use the document manager to respond to cases or manage outgoing communications. This allows you to keep a complete record of the entire case history and provides clear traceability.
Use the document manager to send documents or communications by e-mail. Document platforms offer functionalities to send documents in a secure and personalized way, allowing the traceability of information throughout the entire process cycle. In addition, it avoids having to download or upload files.
Some of the options for sending documents from Athento document manager can be seen here.
Enable public forms from which cases can be registered directly in the document manager. This ensures that all the necessary information for case management is received from the beginning.
Athento also offers interesting possibilities to request documents from external users.
As far as possible, we should try to standardize the management of cases and files. We must have a general framework that allows us to know, broadly speaking, what the status of a file is.
We know that case management means that on some occasions activities that are difficult to automate will have to be carried out, but it is important to define a basic process or workflow, so that we can know almost instantly how many cases are open or how many cases a person has been assigned.
For this purpose, there is functionality such as life cycles, which also allow us to define the maximum time that a case can be kept in a certain state.
In conclusion, using email as the primary means of managing important cases and documents can be inefficient and create traceability and compliance issues.
A proper document management system provides a more efficient and structured solution for managing all binding business documentation and communications. Integrating e-mail with the document management system, responding and managing from this platform, sending documents securely and standardizing the reception of cases are key actions to optimize management and improve the company’s efficiency.
With a document management system that offers these functionalities, companies can guarantee timely attention to their clients and suppliers, increase productivity and maintain complete control over their cases and important documents.
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