Task Times and Deadlines
by Melody
How Long Will My Project Take?
I get this question a lot and unfortunately, there’s no real definite answer. The best way to judge how long a task or project will take is for you to perform the task at least a couple times. Keep track of how long it takes you (don’t estimate) and write it down. Another way to get an estimate is to talk to a friend, family member or colleague who does these types of tasks and ask them about how long it takes them to perform such things.
Of course, times will vary from person to person, especially the first time a task is completed but after your virtual assistant has done it a couple times, you should be able to determine if the price you’re paying is worth it. If it is, great, you can continue as is. But if it isn’t cost effective, you have a few options; you can try to find ways to streamline the process, eliminate the task altogether, see if another assistant can do the work quicker or you may want to continue doing it yourself.
Regardless of whether a task will take 5 minutes or 5 hours, something to keep in mind is to try to send it to your assistant well before your deadline. Assigning something 2 weeks or even a month in advance is perfectly fine.
Chances are your assistant will have many clients and a busy schedule so the more notice they have, the easier it is to work it into their schedule. It also allows them to complete things ahead of schedule if they have extra time available.
Assigning work early also avoids the “Rush Job” fee; an additional fee added to the standard price if the job has a short turnaround time. Some assistants charge a flat rate rush jobs and others raise their hourly rate. Either way, the cost adds up fast. So get in the habit of planning ahead and assigning work early to make the most of everyone’s time and money.
If you’re looking for an assitant to help manage your business, you’ll find a complete list of of our business & marketing services here.
Customer Support: Ticket System vs. Email
by Melody
There are several ways to offer customer support but two popular options are through email and online ticket systems. Though both have their benefits, I find that using a ticket system is a much easier and efficient way of doing it. Here’s why:
- Tickets are not caught in spam filters
- Ticket systems have options for using visual verifications to block spam, thus cutting the time spent on customer service
- Email programs crash causing information to be lost, creating chaos for weeks
- Ticket systems save everything in a history that you can search through with ease
- Emails accidentally get deleted. Ticket systems typically take two steps to delete
- Email addresses tend to be blacklisted therefore my reply doesn’t reach the customer
- My clients (or another assistant) can jump in and answer questions if I’m on vacation or get stuck on something.
- My clients can monitor my replies in the beginning to ensure I’m answering correctly.
- I handle multiple addresses for multiple clients & it can become overwhelming at times to have 20+ accounts set up. With a ticket system, I can manage multiple departments/addresses with a single log in.
- I can access it from any computer at any location and only have to remember one url and login detail.
Although ticket systems are my preference, there are times when email just makes more sense. These would be:
- When you cannot afford a ticket system
- When you need someone to jump in immediately and cannot wait for setup
- When you don’t receive enough customer support email to justify the price
- When you’re just getting started and need time to gauge the amount of service requests you receive
Regardless of which way you choose to handle your customer service, keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be permanent. If you start with one way and it doesn’t work for you, simply switch to something else and see if that works better. You may even find that a combination of the two works best.
If you are struggling to manage your customer support or simply dislike dealing with the public, we can help. We offer prompt, professional customer, affiliate and subscriber support.
Outsourcing Content Management
by Melody
Although we know the importance of regularly adding content to our sites, as business grows, this is one of the first tasks to get pushed to the back burner. Blog posts become sporadic, bulletin boards start looking like ghost towns and nobody knows when the last time a new page was added to the web site. If pushed aside for too long, your business may suffer.
This is why many business owners outsource the management of their content. They’ve learned that by outsourcing this task, they:
* Have more time to focus on important projects
* Know that new material is being added regularly
* Are reassured that search engines are pinged frequently
* See traffic increase because there is more information on their sites
Outsourcing this task doesn’t have to be difficult or require hiring multiple people. Many virtual assistants have experience with a variety of content management systems such as FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Mambo, host based website builders, Blogger, Wordpress, TypePad, phpBB and vBulletin to name a few.
So whether you own websites, blogs, bulletin boards or a combination of these, one assistant may be able to help manage all your content.
If you find you’re not able to post content as often as you like or it’s not really something you enjoy, we can help. You’ll find a complete list of our content managment services here.
Benefits of Outsourcing Customer Service
by Melody
As you grow your business, you’ll likely find your customer support needs increase too. Where it started out with a few emails a day, it may now consume much of your workday. It’s not uncommon for a successful business owner to spend two or three hours a day on customer service email.
When you outsource your customer service to a virtual assistant, your benefits can range from having additional personal time to having a quicker response time to customers’ questions or problems. Here are a few other benefits which may not have occurred to you:
• Your business functionality and image can improve.
• You can actually take a break from your business.
• You are more able to focus on new projects and strategies.
• Customers return because their problem or question was addressed quickly.
After you decide that you would like to benefit from outsourcing your customer service, there are a couple of ways you can go about doing this. The first is through email. The second is through a ticket system.
Basic email is often the first option a new or small business uses to handle customer service. Outsourcing this type requires that a virtual assistant set up your customer service account on his or her computer. Then they must download the email, usually several times a day.
There are several disadvantages with this basic email method. Correspondence may not be easy to track. Communicating with customers, who have certain addresses (such as AOL), could be difficult.
A support ticket system is the other option for customer support. A ticket system is a program which is downloaded to your server and managed from your site. Clients go to this customer support center to submit a ticket. When your customer service is handled by this method, your virtual assistant will sign in and take care of everything through the system.
The disadvantages with this method are few. The advantages are that all support is handled and stored in one place; communications are easier to track; multiple people may sign in and manage different accounts; and if your virtual assistant has an emergency, you can easily have someone else manage your customer service until your VA returns.
Whichever method you choose to handle your customer service, it can be outsourced. If you would like more time, satisfied customers, or an improved business image let us manage your customer service tasks.