Prepare to Record Stakeholder Interactions

In this section, we discuss:

• Stakeholder definition and provide examples
• Information collected by a business and sources (where the information comes from)
• Privacy laws
• Recording data including business writing principles, what is meant by Plain English, note-taking for collecting data and basic formatting
• Methods to ensure accuracy of data collection, including the phonetic alphabet, active listening, questioning and paraphrasing to check understanding

What is a stakeholder?

Understanding your stakeholders is important. A stakeholder is anyone with a concern in the business, either impacting the company or being affected by it. Typically, stakeholders can be classified into internal and external stakeholders, as you can see from the following table.

Internal stakeholders	External stakeholders
Business owner/s Shareholders Employees Managers Executive Other branches/departments	Customers Government agencies, e.g., the ATO Partners Suppliers Shareholders Investors

Scenario

Customers are our business. World Traveller considers every customer an important stakeholder. We also consider our business partners and suppliers key stakeholders to our continuing success. Our policy is to treat all stakeholders with respect and ensure all transactions are transparent and conducted with integrity and without bias. This includes ensuring that all interactions are recorded accurately in the customer management system.

World Traveller has a range of internal and external stakeholders with whom regular interactions occur. Internal stakeholders include their staff, including Tyler, one of the customer service representatives. External stakeholders include cleaners, service suppliers, airlines and contractors used by World Traveller for marketing services and promotional activities.

Information collected by an organisation depends on the type of stakeholder providing the information, as you can see from the following table.

Internal stakeholders	Type of information collected	Source of information
Business owner/s	Financial data Changes to policies and procedures, e.g., recording stakeholder interactions Changes to technologies and systems	Bank statements  Profit and loss statements Memos Intranet
Employees	Feedback on current systems, policies and procedures Personal details, e.g., banking details, superannuation	Email Intranet Paper forms Tax declarations Cloud-based HR database (portals)
Other branches/departments	Feedback on current systems, policies and procedures Data from surveys and other market research	Memos Email Intranet Meeting minutes

External stakeholders	Type of information collected	Source of information
Customers	Customer details Transaction information Positive feedback Negative feedback Requests Purchases Enquiries	Customer surveys Customer feedback Social media monitoring
Government agencies	For example, the ATO Changes to regulations, e.g., tax rates Information for employers	Government websites, e.g., the ATO and Fair Work Australia
Partners	For example, organisations that collaborate to provide ‘packages’ to customers Customer details	Password-protected access to internal databases and systems
Suppliers	Availability of products and services Pricing New products and services Promotions Policies and procedures	Brochures Flyers Websites Magazines Advertisements

Scenario

World Traveller partners with Jet Airlines with Oasis Hotel Group to provide package holidays for leisure, government and student travel throughout Australia and Asia. The type of information collected by World Traveller includes customer name and contact details, passport details. Jet Airlines and the Oasis Hotel Group provide information to World Traveller on pricing, availability, new products and service, promotion and policies and procedures, e.g., cancellations. Customer service representatives from World Traveller such as Tyler regularly access the Jet Airline reservation systems for information on seat allocations, availability and pricing. They would also input customer data (for example, personal details) into the Jet Airline reservation systems.

Privacy laws

The key legislation relating to privacy laws is the Privacy Act 1988 which aims to protect and promote the privacy of individuals. It is particularly concerned about how Australian Government agencies and organisations handle personal information.

Privacy Act 1988

One particular section of the law merits further discussion as it discusses the use of personal information.

Part II, Division 2, Section 16A

This section discusses the situations where it is permittable to share personal information. It is particularly significant because, by default, the sharing and using others’ personal information should not be done without their consent.

Australian Privacy Provisions (APPs)

Contained with the Privacy Act 1988 are specific Australian Privacy Provisions (APPs). You need to have a good working knowledge of these provisions. Read the provisions contained in the following table carefully.

APP 1 — Open and transparent management of personal information Ensures that APP entities manage personal information in an open and transparent way. This includes having a clearly expressed and up to date APP privacy policy.

APP 2 — Anonymity and pseudonymity Requires APP entities to give individuals the option of not identifying themselves, or of using a pseudonym. Limited exceptions apply.

APP 3 — Collection of solicited personal information Outlines when an APP entity can collect personal information that is solicited. It applies higher standards to the collection of ‘sensitive’ information.

APP 4 — Dealing with unsolicited personal information Outlines how APP entities must deal with unsolicited personal information.

APP 5 — Notification of the collection of personal information Outlines when and in what circumstances an APP entity that collects personal information must notify an individual of certain matters.

APP 6 — Use or disclosure of personal information Outlines the circumstances in which an APP entity may use or disclose personal information that it holds.

APP 7 — Direct marketing An organisation may only use or disclose personal information for direct marketing purposes if certain conditions are met.

APP 8 — Cross-border disclosure of personal information Outlines the steps an APP entity must take to protect personal information before it is disclosed overseas.

APP 9 — Adoption, use or disclosure of government related identifiers Outlines the limited circumstances when an organisation may adopt a government related identifier of an individual as its own identifier, or use or disclose a government related identifier of an individual.

APP 10 — Quality of personal information An APP entity must take reasonable steps to ensure the personal information it collects is accurate, up to date and complete. An entity must also take reasonable steps to ensure the personal information it uses or discloses is accurate, up to date, complete and relevant, having regard to the purpose of the use or disclosure.

APP 11 — Security of personal information An APP entity must take reasonable steps to protect personal information it holds from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. An entity has obligations to destroy or de-identify personal information in certain circumstances.

APP 12 — Access to personal information Outlines an APP entity’s obligations when an individual requests to be given access to personal information held about them by the entity. This includes a requirement to provide access unless a specific exception applies.

APP 13 — Correction of personal information Outlines an APP entity’s obligations in relation to correcting the personal information it holds about individuals.

Recording data

Let us look at some of the key considerations when recording data. This includes business writing principles, what is meant by Plain English, note-taking for collecting data and basic formatting.

Business writing principles

To record stakeholder interactions, it is important to be able to write concisely and accurately. Knowledge of standard business writing principles will help you when recording stakeholder interactions. Let us look at the key principles.

• Clarity of purpose: Before beginning a business document, memo, or email, one should ponder two primary questions:
  • Who is the reader?
  • What do I want to convey to the reader through my writing?
  Clarity of purpose gives a direction to the writing and develops its tone, structure, and flow.
• Clarity of thought: Thinking while, rather than before writing, makes the writing less structured, meandering, and repetitive. Business writing requires the skill to reduce long, rambling sentences into concise, clear ones.
• Convey accurate and relevant information: The primary goal of business writing is to convey valuable information. Inaccurate or irrelevant content affects the purpose of the document.
• Avoid jargon: An uncluttered and straightforward writing style goes a long way in communicating the message to the reader.
• Be direct: Presenting the crux of the passage in the first 150 words is a good idea for business writing. It saves the reader time and sharpens the argument.
• Avoid verbosity: If the meaning can be conveyed in three words, it should not be stretched to five. Verbosity works against making the writing engaging to the reader.
• Correct grammar and sentence structure: While a grammatical error may come across as unprofessional, good grammar portrays both attention to detail and skill traits highly valued in the business.

Watch the following video to learn more about the keys to effective business writing.

Principles of plain English

Simply put, the objective of using plain English (also called plain writing or plain language) is to produce communications that your audience can understand the first time they read or hear it! The five plain English principles are:

1. Write in active voice and use the passive voice only in rare cases.*
2. Use short sentences as much as possible.
3. Use everyday words. If you must use technical terms, explain them on the first reference.
4. Use pronouns when you can.
5. Omit unnecessary words.

*Consider the following examples of active and passive language.

Active language	Passive language
Paula booked the ticket.	The ticket was booked by Paula, the customer service representative.
The customer complaints team will process all complaints each month.	Customer complaints are to be processed by the customer complaint team for each month.

Watch this video to learn more about writing concisely – less is more!

Note-taking methods for collecting data

Let us look at three very popular methods for taking notes. These are the:

• Outline method
• Concept map method
• Cornell method

The outline method

The advantage of the outline method is that it allows you to prioritise the material. Key ideas are written to the left of the page, subordinate ideas are then indented, and details of the subordinate ideas can be indented further. To further organise your ideas, you can use the typical outlining numbering scheme. Look through the link at The Outline Note-Taking Method: A Beginner’s Guide for more information on the method.

The concept map method

This is a very graphic method of note-taking that is especially good at capturing the relationships among ideas. Concept maps harness your visual sense to understand complex material “at a glance. To develop a concept map, start by using your documents to rank the ideas by level of detail (from high-level or abstract ideas to detailed facts). Select an overriding idea and place it in a circle in the middle of the page.

The Cornell method

The Cornell method follows a specific format consisting of four boxes: a header, two columns, and a footer. The header is a small box across the top of the page. Underneath the header are two columns: a narrow one on the left (no more than one-third of the page) and a wide one on the right. The wide column, called the “notes” column, takes up most of the page and is used to capture your notes using any of the methods outlined earlier. The left column, known as the “cue” or “recall” column, is used to jot down main ideas, keywords, questions, clarifications, and other notes.

Read through the following link for concise information on Cornell note-taking to learn more about this method. The link also provides visuals of what this might look like.

Basic formatting

Formatting refers to how content is arranged and laid out and whether the content is visually appealing (i.e., font style, use of lists and columns, spacing, etc.). The format you use will depend on the document's purpose and the organisation’s style guide or other requirements.

Standard formatting includes:

• Traditional fonts such as Calibri, Times New Roman or Arial
• Font sizes 10-12 font size
• Left-aligned text
• Single-spaced paragraphs
• Consistent line spacing
• Short headings use a larger bold font.

Capitalisation

Use capitalisation on the following:

• Proper names, including names of a department, e.g. Operations Department
• Beginning of sentences.

Do not capitalise job roles/titles in between sentences unless used as a form of address, e.g. Director John Murphy, Governor Edwards. Otherwise, it should be in lowercase.

When you are entering data into a CMS, you may be restricted in the formatting you apply. For example, you may be unable to italicise or bold text. However, you must observe certain formatting conventions, and one of these is the use of capitals.

For example, if you fall into the habit of not capitalising customer names when typing into the CMS, it will create problems if you are required to do a mail-out. What you type into the CMS will be picked up in a mail-out. It would look unprofessional if you distributed an email letter with proper names or addresses in lowercase. Consider the following two examples.

Professional	Unprofessional
Mr Paul Jones 51 Doggong Street Campsie NSW 2056	mr paul jones 51 doggong street campsie nsw 2056

Scenario

Care should be taken with full stops and abbreviations. For example, Daniel Taylor is a client of World Traveller. His name appears as Daniel Robert Taylor on his passport. If information is entered incorrectly, his name could appear as DR Taylor instead of D.R. Taylor on his travel documents. Not only does this appear unprofessional, but it could also cause Mr Taylor problems at the airport and possibly prevent him from boarding his flight.

The phonetic alphabet

The phonetic alphabet is used internationally to prevent communication mistakes. For example, many letters can sound the same over the phone (and sometimes in person). For example, B, E, and P,  and M and N. Using the phonetic alphabet to spell out words helps check accuracy.

You have probably heard it used in police shows on TV or movies involving air travel. It can be used in everyday situations, for example, when taking a phone call from a customer with an unusual name or a heavy accent. Using the phonetic alphabet to ensure the accuracy of your data can make the difference between making a sale or an expensive mistake.

A - Alpha	H – Hotel	O - Oscar	V - Victor
B - Bravo	I - India	P - Papa	W - Whiskey
C - Charlie	J - Juliet	Q - Quebec	X – Xray
D - Delta	K - Kilo	R - Romeo	Y - Yankee
E - Echo	L - Lima	S - Sierra	Z - Zulu
F - Foxtrot	M - Mike	T - Tango
G - Golf	N - November	U - Uniform

Practice using the phonetic alphabet to spell the name of everyday items, regular use will make it second nature to you.

Active listening

Active listening involves:

• Listening intently.
• Showing interest by asking questions.
• Not getting distracted.
• Focusing on what the speaker is saying, not just waiting for your turn to speak.

Along with speaking effectively, it is important to ensure that you listen effectively, too, as communication is a two-way activity. Pay attention to the insights of the stakeholders with whom you are communicating. You can show that you are actively listening using nonverbal cues, which indicate your understanding and agreement. Nonverbal cues include nodding, maintaining eye contact and leaning forward. Additionally, you can opt to paraphrase what you have heard to confirm that this is indeed what they meant to say.

Active listening means giving your full attention to whoever is speaking. This interpersonal skill shows how much you respect and care about what the other person is saying. The most fundamental way to engage in active listening is through being attentive instead of passive. Along with this, valuable techniques in demonstrating active listening include:

• Using and maintaining eye contact with the speaker
• Leaning towards the speaker to show interest
• Nodding your head when you agree with points being made
• Summarising or paraphrasing messages
• Seeking confirmation that your understanding of the speaker’s points is correct

Active questioning

Along with active listening, active questioning is a skill that will show you are engaged in the discussion being held. Active questioning entails asking meaningful questions that would deepen your conversation, eliciting and encouraging critical thinking. This skill will help improve the discussion and keep it going. Useful techniques in demonstrating active questioning include:

• Asking probing questions
• Using funnel questioning (asking general questions first, then moving to more specific questions as you go along)
• Seeking answers to open-ended questions to encourage a free flow of thoughts
• Make a list of questions that allows you to collect information from the customers.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is repeating the information you have just received in your own words to check that you have understood the message. If you have misunderstood, the person providing the message will identify this and correct the misunderstanding.

Scenario

For example, Tyler's World Traveller office is very busy and can become quite noisy at times. When a client calls to request a quote or make a booking, Tyler repeats the details of their enquiry back to them to ensure that no errors are made. “So you are booked on QF1 to London Heathrow on Tuesday the 7th at 6.30 PM, is that correct?”

In this section, we briefly discuss how to review the purpose of stakeholder interactions. This is part of your preparation before you create records of stakeholder interaction.

What is stakeholder interaction?

Stakeholder interaction is any contact between your organisation and its stakeholders. We discussed some of the stakeholders a business might have earlier on. Let’s look at how just a few of these could interact with Tyler in just one transaction in his role as Customer Service Representative at World Traveller.

From this one contact with a customer, Tyler has collected a great deal of information. He knows Mrs Hamilton's contact details, passport number, where she is travelling to, dates of travel, who she is travelling with and how much she has been quoted.

Now, imagine Tyler is away from work for the next few days. What happens if Tyler hasn’t recorded any of this information in the CMS, where other World Traveller Customer Service Representatives can access it, and Mrs Hamilton calls with questions or to accept the quote? The customer service representative taking the call would have two options:

• Start the quote process from the beginning, asking Mrs Hamilton to repeat details she has already provided. Then contact every supplier and redo the entire quote. This would be very time consuming and look very unprofessional.
• Inform Mrs Hamilton that Tyler is away from work and she will need to call back next week, again, very unprofessional.

Either way, Mrs Hamilton is likely to be annoyed and may take her business elsewhere.

Benefits of recording stakeholder interactions

• The business will be able to make decisions based on facts, not speculation. For example, World Traveller will be able to determine exactly how many customers went on cruises last year
• Lead to greater stakeholder satisfaction. That is, fewer mistakes being made, better customer service
• Improves chances of success such as improved sales
• Promote open, two-way communication, for example, being able to address complaints more effectively
• Builds trust. For example, in the case of Mrs Hamilton above, proper recording of interactions prevents customers from losing faith in the organisation.

Common purposes for stakeholder/customer interactions

Some of the most common purposes of stakeholder interactions include:

• complaints
• requesting information
• placing an order
• making a booking
• providing feedback.

Regardless of the purpose, it needs to be recorded correctly into your organisation’s customer management system. Therefore, you need to review the purpose of the interaction to ensure you understand it correctly and completely.

Context of interactions

The context of interaction refers to the background of the interaction. In other words, why is the interaction occurring? When we talk about the context, we are referring to:

• Background
• Circumstances
• Environment
• Setting
• Situation.

Outcomes of effective stakeholder interaction

There are numerous positive outcomes of effective stakeholder interactions.

• Creates higher-quality decision making
• Avoids duplication
• Increases efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery
• Supports sustainability planning
• Creates higher-quality decision making
• Avoids duplication
• Increases efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery
• Supports sustainability planning

Let’s look at how we can identify the purpose, context and outcome in an interaction.

Scenario

Tyler works as a customer service representative at World Traveller. Tyler's customer, Erica, wants to book a flight to New Zealand for herself and her husband. Tyler notices that Erica uses a wheelchair and asks if she will need assistance at the airport or boarding the plane. Erica replies that her wheelchair is within airline size requirements, so she will not need assistance with her wheelchair (as long as the plane is boarded via an aerobridge).

Erica also explains that she has Multiple Sclerosis; she cannot use standard cutlery and requests that she be able to take her own assistive cutlery on board. If the airline doesn’t agree to this request, Erica’s husband will need to feed her during the flight.

Tyler knows that this request is not within the usual airline policy but feels that it is a reasonable request, so he contacts the airline to negotiate an exception to the rule for Erica. Kim from the Dedicated Travel Agents Hotline at Jet Airlines is empathetic to Erica’s needs and obtains permission from her supervisor, Deidre.

Let’s look at parts of this scenario more closely.

• Purpose: Erica is requesting to take assistive cutlery on board her flight to New Zealand.
• Context: Erica suffers from MS and will require assistance to eat is she is unable to take her assistive cutlery on board.
• Outcome: Erica has been granted permission to take her cutlery onboard by Deidre at Jet Airways.

Why is this so important?

The result of incorrect data entry is significant to all stakeholders – the customer or clients, your colleagues, the organisation and your partners. Inaccurate data such as incorrect spelling of a name, the wrong number of a street address, or a date entered in incorrect format (for example, DD/MM/YY instead of YY/MM/D) can result in a very poor customer experience.

For example, for the World Traveller, incorrect data can result in:

• Information on holiday options not received
• Payment transactions rejected
• Incorrect information is distributed
• Flights are missed
• Baggage is sent to the wrong destination
• Dietary requirements are not met.

Any of these experiences can result in complaints and angry customers. This is not good for the customer (or any other stakeholder) or the organisation.

Review the information you have collected from the stakeholder information. This includes:

• Double-checking the details, including numerical codes such as booking numbers and the spelling of names, date-of-birth and contact telephone or email addresses.
• When clarifying customer details, use the phonetic alphabet
• Use listening and questioning skills to gather information and confirm understanding.
• Paraphrase information back to the customer.

Before we look at policies and procedures related to recording stakeholder interactions, we need to understand the difference between a policy and a procedure. Do you know what they mean?

• Policies: Policies are statements that state principles that help organisations achieve their set goals and objectives. They are a precise plan of action that guides the decisions and achieves outcome(s). They clearly state the goals and conditions and are similar to a report in length. They are also formally written and may use very technical language.
• Procedures: Procedures, meanwhile, are a list of steps an employee must adhere to when completing a particular task or activity defined by an organisation. They are detailed actions that have to be executed in the same manner to obtain the same result described in the policy. These are written to make the policy workable and achieve the intention of the policy.

It is easy to get confused by the differences between policies and procedures. Refer to the following guide to differentiate policies from procedures:

Point of comparison	Policies	Procedures
Frequency of change	Rarely changes once finalised and implemented	Frequently changed and updated for continuous development
Conditions needed for best implementation	Best implemented when all employees fully accept the requirements written within it	Best implemented when they are created and listed in a logical process that can be easily followed
What it reflects	Reflects and supports the fulfilment of an organisation's mission statement	Represents a policy statement's practical application

If you are unsure of the policies or procedures that apply to recording stakeholder interactions in your workplace, ask a more experienced co-worker to assist or refer to your organisation's guidelines.

Common policies and procedures related to record-keeping

Many organisations, such as the World Traveller, will have a policy and procedure that relates specifically to recording stakeholder interactions and what is required in the customer management system. However, your organisation may also retain other stakeholder records external to the CMS. For example, a travel agency may be unable to save airline tickets to the CMS but need to retain this information securely. Some related policies and procedures may be referred to in a recording stakeholder interactions policy and procedure. It is useful to have a general understanding of these related policies and procedures.

Select the following headings to learn more.

Scenario

World Traveller has a detailed Recording Stakeholder Interaction Policy and Procedure provided to all customer service representatives at induction. The contents of the policy and procedure include:

• The policy for recording stakeholder interactions at World Traveller
• The main types of customer interactions at World Traveller
• The responsibilities of customer service representatives at World Traveller
• The policy for recording stakeholder interactions at World Traveller
• How to check that records represent stakeholder views, are free of bias and opinion and comply with organisational requirements
• How to check records for completeness and discoverability.

It also has a section on documenting complaints and the process for recording a complaint in the customer management system.

Key points

• The four steps in preparing to record stakeholder interactions are:
  1. Collecting information from stakeholder interaction
  2. Reviewing the purpose of stakeholder interaction
  3. Reviewing information collected from stakeholder interaction
  4. Identifying organisational policies and procedures and determining information to be collected in the record.
• The phonetic alphabet is used internationally to prevent communication mistakes.
• Active listening is essential when recording information and includes listening intently, showing interest by asking questions, not getting distracted and not listening purely so you can have your turn to speak. 
• Some of the most common purposes of stakeholder interactions include complaints, requesting information, placing an order, making a booking and providing feedback.
• Many organisations, such as the World Traveller, will have a policy and procedure that relates specifically to recording stakeholder interactions and what is required in the customer management system.

The final activity for this topic is a set of questions that will help you prepare for your formal assessment.