Forrest Shopping Co., Ltd. operates an online store that sells apparel and miscellaneous goods, and its public relations department posts daily about the products they sell on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.
*This process improvement story is fictional and has no relation to any real people or organizations.
1. Issue: Missed scheduled social media post
The Public Relations Department at Forrest Shopping Co., Ltd. performs the regular task of posting one of the company’s product introductions per day on social media in order to increase product awareness and promote sales.
This task is shared among everyone in the department, but sometimes the posts aren’t made on schedule because staff assume someone else might have already started working on them, or because it takes time to check to see if anyone has already started them.
As a result, there were incidents where no one undertook the task and scheduled posts on social media were missed. This could result in the planned increase in product awareness and sales promotion not being achieved sufficiently, which is an issue.
2. Solution: Automatically start tasks using a timer
The Process Owner reorganized the process so that the work would start automatically at 7 a.m. on weekdays and also set a deadline. This meant that a “Social Media Post” task (deadline 3 p.m.) would be offered to all members of the department at 7 a.m. on weekdays.*
This reorganization eliminated the need for staff to manually start tasks and reduced the effort required to constantly check the progress of tasks.
*Click here for more information on Questetra’s workflow features
Before
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Manual Start
The operator manually starts the task.
1. Post
The operator processes the SNS (social media) post.
Update subject
The scheduled posting date and time are added to the subject line.
Report post
The scheduled post details and time are automatically shared on Slack.
After
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Timer start
The process starts automatically at 7:00 AM every day, and tasks are assigned to all operators. If no one takes on the task by the designated deadline, the process will be terminated.
1. Post
The operator processes the SNS (social media) post.
Update subject
The scheduled posting date and time are added to the subject line.
Report post
The scheduled post details and time are automatically shared on Slack.
3. Effects
Preventing Missed Submissions
By automatically starting a task with a timer, the person in charge will know when to start, reducing the risk of missing a post.
Reduce Stress Among Staff
This reduces the need to check and hesitate about whether someone else has already started on the task, and reduces the psychological burden on the person in charge, making work proceed more smoothly.
Reduce the Burden on Staff
There is no need to manually start or check work, reducing the burden on staff and giving them more time to focus on other tasks.
4. Other Business Applications
Preparation and Submission of Daily and Regular Reports
If you have to perform reporting tasks at a fixed time every day, you can set a timer to automatically start and close the task, reducing the amount of work required by the person in charge and the risk of not submitting the task, thereby improving efficiency.
Regular Updates of Inventory and Sales Data
Using a timer can also help you avoid forgetting to check inventory or update sales data at specific times, making it easier to manage the timing of data updates.
Preparation and Agenda Setting for Regular Meetings
By setting up automatic timer notifications for preparing for regular meetings and creating agendas, you can reduce the hassle among those in charge and ensure proper preparation.