In every restaurant chain, District Managers (DM’s) complete field inspections on the locations they are responsible for. During these store visits, there are certain areas of the store that often require more focus in the form of a follow up or Action Plan. With paper and excel based field assessments, creating these Action Plans can be a challenging experience, lowering the probability that they are completed at all.
Some concerns with excel based action plans include:
Conducting an assessment is a time-consuming process that requires the DM to walk the complete footprint of their store, observing and taking notes. Keeping track of specific areas for future Action Plans, adds further time forcing the quality of each Action Plan to suffer. Creating these Action Plans at the end of an assessment elongates the overall store visit, taking more time to complete the overall process.
Because of these generalized Action Plans, the level of ambiguity increases with no specific task or area flagged. Completing Action Plans at the end of an assessment means that the precise position that the Action Plan refers to, might be lost during the assessment. It is difficult for a DM to identify and recall the exact spot that an infraction occurred. Reviewing their notes might give a snapshot of the store specifics, but it won’t accurately articulate each area requiring an Action Plan.
For an Action Plan to be successful, the problems identified during an inspection must be corrected by the store. While this may seem like an obvious requirement, with excel based Action Plans tracking statuses is extremely difficult. After a field inspection is complete, relevant parties at the store including Owners/General Managers (GM) will be provided with a list of issues to fix and a due date. With excel based field inspection forms, DM’s have no way to remotely monitor whether corrective actions have taken place without physically revisiting the store. This becomes a strenuous and nearly impossible responsibility for the DM’s.
With a digital field assessment, all Action Plans are created with specific tasks in mind providing constant communication including visual documentation between all relevant stakeholders. To learn more please click the link below.