Five Effective Training Tips On Documenting Restoration Jobs

“I’ll do it when I get back.”

“I’ll add that in later.”

These are the kinds of things you never want to hear when it comes to documenting cleaning and restoration jobs. Training your staff to create clear, consistent documentation for every restoration job they go on will save you time, money, improve client relationships, and prevent a lot of major headaches in the long run. At One Claim Solution, we are here to help your documentation be received and processed efficiently by insurance adjusters. However, our support can only go so far if the documentation adjusters receive is incomplete, unclear, or contains errors. Here are five training tips for teaching your staff how to effectively document their restoration jobs.

Teach The Fundamentals Of Documenting Jobs

While it may come across as lazy if some employees consistently submit subpar documentation, they may just not know how to do it properly. This might be the first time they’ve done anything like this so don’t worry about being overly simplistic when explaining how to document restoration jobs. Basic fundamentals that may seem obvious like writing things down immediately, using objective language, and writing thorough descriptions may not be obvious to someone who is doing this for the first time.

Write Things Down Immediately, Never Procrastinate

The number one mistake people make is having the thought to write something down but then putting it off until later only to forget. Restoration technicians should never think to document something but then put it off thinking they will remember later. This is the kind of thing that should be taught over and over again because we are all prone to do this at times.

Create Your Own System

Every cleaning and restoration company does their documentation a little bit differently. Once you find what works for you and your company then you can teach that to your employees and give them a framework for documenting damage that works for your company’s specific situation.

Allow Some Flexibility

While you should provide a detailed overview for your employees regarding how to document damage, it is usually counterproductive to be overly rigid about how they record the damage. People process information differently so allowing a little flexibility for how they do things is a good idea. However, you don’t need to go over the top with this and should help your employees when they stray too far from the guidelines you’ve established.

Help Keep People Accountable

Finally, accountability is a key element of maintaining quality documentation. Documenting damage is not a very exciting thing to do, and it’s human nature to want to avoid doing it. So a little accountability will help you and your employees provide higher quality service to your clients and avoid future headaches dealing with documentation issues.

All in all, teaching your employees how to properly document a restoration job is one of the best things you can do to make your business operate more efficiently. From our experts at One Claim Solution, the tips above are not an exhaustive list of training tips but they do provide a great foundation for teaching your employees documentation skills.