How to Measure Inquiry Response Speed

The inquiry response workflow is a great place to start Business Process Management (BPM). This is because a lot of companies aren't sure about things like, how long it takes on average for their employees to respond to external inquiries, what kind of inquiries are made frequently, or how these inquiries are responded to. These questions are often raised in board meetings, and the answer is usually, "I'll find out by the next meeting." Wouldn't it feel good to be able to say, "Here, I can show you right now"?

But, as preparation, here is a sample workflow for responding to internal inquiries. (Starting too big is a recipe for disaster.)

With this workflow, the response entered at task 3 is automatically sent as an email at the final "Message Throwing Intermediate Event." The respondent is selected at task 2. The so-called "inquiry response speed" is the time it takes from inquiry, inputted at task 1, to response email. It's the job of every company to try to respond to potential clients with more speed and accuracy.

Furthermore, there are many companies that use webforms to handle inquiries. The below workflow can automatically receive data sent from a Google Docs Spreadsheet Form. (This is called a Message Start Event in BPMN terminology.)

• Inquiry Response <Manual Input>
• Inquiry Response <Webform>