⚌Working together in a team

The rule that has proved its worth everywhere: whoever had the contact writes the note. Immediately, not later and not through someone else.

This leads to the division:

• Everyone writes notes and sets follow-ups for their own conversations.
• One person is responsible for master data quality — duplicates, categories, spellings.
• One person is responsible for templates and campaigns.

The second point is the one most often missing. Data maintenance that nobody is responsible for does not happen — and a database that nobody tidies up is no longer used after two years.

It does not have to be a whole job. One hour a month is enough for most databases.

So that a colleague can read it in six months without having to ask. Four things belong in it:

1. Date and occasion — call, email, meeting. (Aurora Hive Sales sets the date.)
2. What you discussed, in keywords.
3. What has been agreed — and by whom.
4. What comes next, with a date. Ideally as a follow-up straight away.

What does not belong in it:

• Judgements about people. “Unpleasant”, “difficult” — that can be read at any time in the course of a subject access request.
• Health matters, private matters, anything in a special category under the GDPR.
• Abbreviations only you know.

Rule of thumb: write as if the person concerned were reading along. They may well do so.

To the business — not to the person who created it. That sounds obvious, and in practice it is not.

What follows from this:

• Everyone may look, as far as their role allows. A contact only one person knows about is lost when that person is on holiday.
• Agreements replace ownership. Who is currently dealing with whom? That belongs in a note or a follow-up, not in someone’s head.
• Avoid approaching people twice. Nothing is more embarrassing than two colleagues calling the same customer in the same week with the same offer.

Where an assignment makes sense — territories, industries, account management — record it: as a category, as a tag, as a note. But as a division of labour, not as ownership.

With three moves, all of which are in the software:

1. Look at the file before calling. When was the last contact, with whom, about what? That takes five seconds.
2. Set follow-ups. A follow-up that has been set is visible and says: someone is dealing with this.
3. Campaigns exclude each other. Aurora Hive Sales makes sure nobody is written to twice in the same stage — but only within the campaign logic. A personal phone call is not affected by this.

And organisationally: anyone who notes nothing after a conversation makes this coordination impossible. That is the real reason why the note is so important — not as a memory aid, but for visibility to others.

Beforehand, not on the first day of sickness. Four points:

• Reassign follow-ups or name a stand-in. A follow-up that falls due during a holiday otherwise lapses silently.
• Check running campaigns. Who answers the replies? A campaign whose replies are left for two weeks would have been better not started.
• Assign tasks rather than relying on “someone will do it”.
• Do not share accounts. The stand-in works with their own account — otherwise it is impossible to tell afterwards who did what.

The practical move: on your last working day, spend ten minutes going through your own open follow-ups and deciding — postpone or hand over.

For a contact: a note with the current status, a follow-up in the new person’s name, and a short conversation. The note does not replace the conversation — it records it.

For a campaign: the new person responsible needs to know four things:

• Who the recipients are and why.
• Which stage is running and when the next one is due.
• What is to happen with replies.
• Where the boundary is — what they decide themselves and what they do not.

What you should not do: hand over a running campaign in the middle of a stage without someone taking over the replies. Replies left for days are worse than no campaign.

When someone leaves for good: switch off the account, do not delete it. The notes stay assigned.

According to what someone is meant to do, not according to their position:

• Someone who only makes calls and takes notes does not need campaign rights. They should be able to see and change contacts and write notes.
• Someone responsible for campaigns needs them, and should be aware of what is at stake.
• Those who administer — user accounts, mailboxes, settings — should be a small group.

Two rules on this:

• At least two administrators. One falls ill, goes on holiday, resigns.
• No more than necessary. Every additional administrator is an additional way of accidentally doing something big.

And the most important separation: maintaining contacts and starting campaigns are two different things. Someone who does the first does not need the second.

Five sentences on half a page — no small team needs more:

1. Who decides whether a list may be written to.
2. Who may launch a campaign.
3. What belongs in a note and what does not.
4. How categories are assigned — with one line of explanation per category.
5. When we tidy up — a fixed date, even if only once a quarter.

Point 4 is the underestimated one: categories that everyone understands differently are worse than none. “Prospect” means “has enquired” to one colleague and “might be interested” to another — and the campaign then hits the wrong people.

Write it down. Not as a policy, but as a sheet people read when they start.

In this order, spread over the first week:

1. Create an account with the smallest role that will do.
2. Tour of their own area — it shows things in the real interface.
3. Show the agreements, especially the categories.
4. Let them watch how you conduct a conversation and take notes afterwards.
5. Let them do it themselves and look at it together once.

What you should not do: a two-hour demonstration of all areas. What sticks from that is the impression that it is complicated.

And hide in the sidebar what the person does not need. An interface with twenty entries is more off-putting on the first day than any function.

Everything that is in the shared database — contacts, notes, campaigns, task lists, as far as their role allows.

Personal are: your follow-ups, your tasks, your view of the overview, your navigation settings.

What that means for notes: they are not private. Do not write anything in them that you would not say to a colleague — or to the person concerned.

And as for the log: every changing access is recorded, with person and time. That is not surveillance but the prerequisite for being able to investigate an incident. What is not logged is reading.

That is not a question for the software, but it shows up there — usually as contradictory notes or as a category that keeps switching back and forth.

What helps:

• Both points of view in the note, with date and name. Do not overwrite the other person’s note.
• One person decides the category, not whoever was active last.
• For follow-ups: one person, one date. Two follow-ups on the same contact mean two calls.

The most common case behind this is not a conflict but a misunderstanding about the categories. If it happens more often, point 4 of the agreements is missing.

Two things, one legal, one practical:

Legally: anyone who processes personal data on your behalf is a processor. That requires a contract under Art. 28 GDPR — before the first access, not afterwards.

In practice:

• An account of their own, never a shared one.
• The smallest role that is enough for the task.
• Limited in time — and switched off immediately at the end of the collaboration.
• Hide areas that have nothing to do with the assignment.

That leaves the question to ask beforehand: does the person really need access to the database? A copywriter writing a template does not need contact data. A file with the draft is enough.

Little in terms of content, quite a lot organisationally:

• One database, not several. Separate databases per location lead to the same customer being written to twice.
• Assignment via category or tag, not via separate systems.
• Agreements become more important. What is a quick word across the room in one place has to be written down between locations.
• A fixed date on which those involved meet. Even a short, regular call.

What is often overlooked: who maintains the shared things? Templates, categories, data quality. Without a named person, the locations drift apart, and after a year everyone works differently.