1. Scale your business

Documenting your business helps you prepare for future growth. Let’s take McDonalds or Starbucks… Do you think their staff simply wing it and guess what they are doing when performing their daily operations? Of course not! They have very detailed and intricate documentation in place as to how their systems work and how things should be done. Documentation allows you to better understand your existing system, and to measure its effectiveness and subsequently identify any weaknesses and areas that require improvement. You should always aim at ways to scale your business effectively if you want to grow your business.

2. Provide consistent customer experience

How would you feel if a coffee from Starbucks tasted different every time you ordered one? Consistency is imperative for a great customer experience. Customers have bottom line expectations with regard to value and what they will get. When documenting your operations including sales, customer support and finance, you will ensure that your clients receive the same standard and level of customer experience. This will in turn drive recurring sales (repeat customers) and sustain their loyalty.

3. Easier to train your employees

Documenting your system will greatly improve the proficiency of your employee training. The employee will have a benchmark to adhere to which takes the guesswork out of their performance. When they do need help, the documents will be their first reference point before they refer anything to their managers. The training material should be developed based on the best practices within their organization.

4. Operations can be monitored, managed and improved

A good set of documentation details for your system allows you to observe and assess your current processes and identify any potential threats or ineffectiveness. It serves as a great guideline to help managers maintain the required standard of operations.

5. Prevent the loss of key information

It’s no secret that key information will be lost whenever a key person leaves a company. Your job is to bring to surface that key information and document it so that it won’t be lost in the future. Constantly encourage your people to provide feedback about any documentation and operations. Document this knowledge and key information which is invaluable to form and retain best practises.