Business Case for the Paperless Office | Filing Cabinet Catastrophe
I can’t believe it was only a few short years ago that I was still using our old filing cabinet in our office to file away every piece a paper that came across my desk. What a pain it would be going through all of that Vendor & Customer filing alphabetizing, punching holes, stapling, and worst of all standing over a file cabinet for hours every week!
Of course, when a customer would call and want to discuss a service call from a month ago- well then it would be a real ordeal, and would go something like this:
Me: "Well sir let put you on hold so I can pull your file." <Put the customer on hold walk to the filing cabinet hoping the file was put away correctly in alphabetical order>
If I was lucky the file would be there in the right spot where it was suppose to be; and not sitting on someone else's desk or perhaps filed under A when it was suppose to be filed under B.
As I grab the file head back to my desk, all the while my customer is holding and waiting patiently. I flip through the file and realize --wait the service order I needed isn’t in the file folder! I tell the customer, "...I will have to call you back!" I would then frantically run throughout the office searching through piles of unfiled papers while asking co-workers if they have seen the service order.
Searching through other customer files thinking maybe the pages were stuck together. Finally, when the document was located (an hour later) I call my customer back now prepared to discuss their issue.
Well, that felt like a lifetime ago (thankfully) but ever since my company started using a Document Management Solution --over four years ago, it made my life so much easier. The actual filing takes me less than a quarter of the time that it used to. Now, I simply scan the document and it shows up in a repository on my computer that I would be able to index few key components of the document. For example, Customer Name, Date, Sales Order Number, etc.
Now, when a customer calls with a question regarding a service order from a month ago, piece of cake! It is as simple as typing my customers name and date range in the search and *poof* I instantaneously have the document I need to help my customer. If our office decided to go back to our old ways of filing; our staffing level would not be able to handle the work. I am convinced that we would have to hire someone just to file and retrieve paper documents in itself.
The Cost and Time Savings are unbelievable!
Have you experienced any of these filing set backs? what are your office experiences?
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