I will be heading out on a road trip later this month doing a number of trainings throughout Central California. The training will focus on building collaboration and how to effectively co-case manage customers. It’s part of our Access for All: Leadership Series. I love this topic primarily because it allows an organization the opportunity to “dig deep” into their existing operations. It’s also a time to increase staff awareness of not only who they serve, but how they do it.
One of the things we’ll be covering is the involvement of partner organizations in service delivery. In addition to exploring how customers access services (i.e., is partner co-located? If not, what is the referral process?), we’ll also evaluate the strength of those partner relationships. It’s one thing to have a partner, but what does that really mean…or better yet, what should it mean?
In addition to jointly serving a particular customer, a partner relationship, in my opinion, is also having a single point of contact to refer that customer to. A retired colleague of mine used to refer to that as a “warm handoff.” It creates a better experience for the customer, but also creates for an open communication loop between you and the partner agency. This allows you to follow-up directly to ensure services were received by the customer and to problem-solve if any issues arise.
If you were to rate your partner relationships on a 1-5 scale (5 being the BEST), how would your relationships score? Do you sink or swim? I find that most organizations can identify at least one or two partner relationships that could be strengthened. If you are not communicating regularly and have an established referral system in place, this means you may have some work to do!
Challenge: When you have a few minutes, write down all of the partners you work with. Rate each one using a Likert Scale of 1-5. You can only score a 5 if you have a single point of contact, regular communication, AND a referral system in place! If you find yourself with a score of 1 or 2, make a commitment in the next month to focus on strengthening that partner relationship. An easy first step is to get that regular dialogue going. It can be as simple as an email or phone call to check in. Do you know their eligibility requirements? Have you done an in person visit if they are in the area? How is their success measured? Getting these questions answered are all ways to establish rapport.
If you accept the challenge, be sure to share with us what you’ve done to strengthen your partner relationships! You can do so by replying directly to this email. We’d love to hear from you! We’ll continue the theme of partners and partnerships in our next issue, so you’ll want to watch for it coming your way in the next few weeks.
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