The customer calls to find out whether their request has been accepted. They repeat the background to a second person, forward the original email and ask someone to confirm the next step. A few days later, they chase again.
Your team may be working hard throughout. But from the customer's side, keeping the work moving has become another task they must manage.
This is an illustrative situation, and it raises a useful service question: how much coordination are we asking the customer to do because our own handovers are unclear?
Look at the effort between the recorded milestones
A service can appear to progress through its stages while requiring repeated intervention from the customer. The job is logged, allocated and eventually completed. The report may not show the calls and explanations needed to get it there.
Examine those contacts. Which were necessary contributions from the customer, such as providing information or approving a decision? Which were attempts to find out who owned the work or recover an answer already supplied?
That distinction keeps the review fair. Customers have responsibilities in many services. The aim is to make those responsibilities clear and proportionate, while keeping your internal coordination inside your business.
Start with a recent request. Trace the experience from the customer's first contact through to confirmation of completion, including what they had to do between each recorded step.
Give the request an owner the customer can recognise
Ownership does not mean one person must personally complete every task. It means someone is accountable for coordinating the response and making the next step clear.
The owner needs to know the current position, the outstanding dependencies and where to obtain a decision. They also need cover arrangements so that work does not stop when they are unavailable.
Tell the customer how the request will be handled. Confirm the contact route, the next action and when they should expect an update. If ownership changes, make the handover explicit rather than leaving the customer to discover it.
A named contact without the information or authority to help can become another person who has to chase. Design the role so that ownership is workable.
Transfer the context with the task
Consider an illustrative request moving from an account manager to operations. The account manager knows the customer's preferred dates and the reason for a particular requirement. Operations receives only a short job description.
The customer is then asked to explain the situation again. The missing context may affect scheduling, pricing or what the team prepares to deliver.
Agree what a useful handover contains. Include the relevant requirement, decisions already made, approved commitments, open questions and the current contact details. Keep the record accessible to the people who need it through an appropriate shared system.
The receiving person should be able to confirm that they have enough information to proceed. If something is missing, give it a clear route back to the owner. Avoid treating an internal transfer as complete simply because a message has been sent.
Be clear when the next move belongs to the customer
Sometimes progress genuinely depends on customer information, access or approval. State exactly what is needed, why it matters and when it is required. Make the request easy to answer.
If the missing input affects a timetable or commitment, explain that consequence early. Record the dependency so colleagues do not give conflicting accounts of why the work is waiting.
Also check whether the information has already been supplied elsewhere. Asking again may be necessary if circumstances have changed, but explain that reason. The customer should not have to reconstruct your records to prove that they responded.
Where several inputs are needed, coordinate the requests. A coherent list with an owner is easier to manage than disconnected messages from multiple departments.
Give updates that remove uncertainty
An update should help the customer understand the position and what happens next. “We are looking into it” may acknowledge activity, but it leaves important questions unanswered.
Where you can, explain what is complete, what remains unresolved, who is dealing with it and when the next update will arrive. Do not promise an outcome or date that the team has not confirmed.
If there is no new answer, honour the agreed update and explain what is still being checked. A dependable communication rhythm can prevent the customer from having to ask whether anyone is still responsible.
Match the frequency and channel to the service and the customer's needs. Some situations need a conversation; others need a clear written confirmation. More messages are only useful if they reduce uncertainty rather than adding noise.
Use repeated chasing as evidence
For a sample of requests, look at how many customer contacts were needed to establish status, repeat information or obtain an overdue response. Read the context before drawing conclusions from the count.
Contact can also mean healthy collaboration. A complex project may need frequent discussion. Separate productive decisions from avoidable recovery work rather than setting a target to minimise every interaction.
Ask the people handling the requests where the repeated chasing begins. It may point to an unclear queue, missing cover, fragmented records or a dependency nobody is tracking.
Treat the pattern as a service-design issue to investigate. If staff lack capacity or authority, improving the wording of their emails will not resolve the underlying problem.
Run a customer-effort walkthrough
Choose one completed request and one that is still open. Review them with colleagues from the main handovers, using the records and the customer's feedback where available.
- Starting point: Was it clear how to make the request and what information to provide?
- Ownership: Could the customer identify who was coordinating the response?
- Continuity: Did relevant information and agreed decisions travel with the work?
- Dependencies: Were customer actions specific, necessary and clearly explained?
- Updates: Did communication arrive when agreed and make the next step understandable?
- Completion: Did the customer receive a clear confirmation, with unresolved matters assigned?
Select one handover to improve and check the next group of requests. Look for less repeated explanation, fewer avoidable status enquiries and better continuity. Confirm that the change has helped the team deliver as well as improved the customer's experience.
Good account management includes organising the work behind the relationship. When the customer can rely on a clear owner and a dependable next step, they can concentrate on the outcome they engaged your business to provide.
Novologix supports change programmes that connect processes, responsibilities and the people using them. We can help you review the handovers behind your service and define a practical improvement to client delivery.