Communication Breakdown

This past summer, I worked in a golf shop at a country club. One of my responsibilities was to head the club repair service our shop offered. Re-gripping clubs was the most common form of club repair service that we did, but we also did re-shafting and lie/loft alterations. With the old system, when a customer wanted to have a club or set of clubs worked on, the employee assisting the member would tag the club with a little index card and set it aside in the back room for the time being. It would be the club repairer's responsibility to seek out these clubs with the tag, so he knew what he needed to do with the club. However, this index card tag often did not explain fully what needed to be done to the club. So, there was often a miscommunication between myself and the customer if I was not the employee assisting the customer (I had other duties and responsibilities and was not always there to assist the customer first hand). Sometimes, I would see a club that needed to be repaired with an index card tagged on, but I was unclear of what had to be done. Then, I would have to somehow try to decipher who wrote the note, or seek out the member to ask what needed to be done. The latter alternative is very unprofessional and a waste of time. Also, there were some times in which the club would "disappear" in the back room, and since I could not find the club, I never knew that something had to be done. This made a couple of customers very upset when their clubs were not repaired on time, and we had to perform the service free of charge and incur a loss. All of this being said, something in the process had to be changed.

So, I thought long and hard about the situation and reached a solution. I decided that we needed to have a log of all the incoming clubs that were being repaired. On this sheet, it said exactly who needed the repair, what needed to be done to what clubs, when it needed to be completed, the location of the clubs (in the pro shop, club repair lab, or bag room), and who helped the customer. The who helped the customer section was one of the most important sections because if there was any confusion or problem, I could approach the employee who helped the customer with any questions I had for him. These club repair forms were kept in a binder behind the pro shop counter, so anyone working the counter had access to the book. It would be my responsibility to look through the book every day to see what needed to be done. The forms were also very convenient and useful in the billing of the repairs. We could see when the repair was completed, then bill it, and then staple the sales receipt to the club repair form and file it away. Overall, the club repair service was much more efficient and the number of complaints due to miscommunication were almost non-existent.

communication breakdown, it's always the same, having a nervous breakdown, drive me insane!