Business firms across the globe have realized the benefits of hiring virtual assistants. The key advantage of having such a professional is that, you can free up your time to a substantial extent. It is a cost-effective solution to ease up the pressure at your desk. However, you should know how to hire a virtual assistant, if you are hiring a professional for this position for the first time. Else, you may end up making mistakes, that may cost you high in future. Although working with a virtual assistant comes with a lot of benefits, you need to choose the right person to do the task. The key reason behind hiring virtual assistants is to entrust them with the non-core tasks in your business, while you focus on the key priorities.
At the outset, you should know how to work with a virtual assistant. Here are certain guidelines, that will help you avoid common mistakes that business firms make while working with virtual assistants. Not conveying your preferences One of the key mistakes that business firms make while hiring virtual assistants is that, they expect them to know their preferences. You should remember, that each business organization works in its own way and you need to provide specific instructions to the virtual assistants when you start working with them. This will make the services more customized. Make sure to communicate all your requirements to the VA. You may hire a virtual assistant for travel booking, scheduling appointments, dealing with customers and so on. In any case, you need to establish a seamless communication mechanism with the VA and inform the professional about your exact requirements. For instance, if you are entrusting the task of travel booking to a VA, you should specify the preferred airport or the size of your rental car. This enables them to get a better view of your needs and they work accordingly. Not being sure of the work to get done Well, a large number of business firms hire virtual assistants, but are not sure of what work they can entrust them with. Instead, they complete all the tasks by themselves. Ultimately, they can outsource a few minor tasks to these experts. Before you hire a VA, you should have a clear idea of the work you are supposed to get done by them. Make a list of all the secondary tasks in your organization. Entrust these virtual assistant tasks upon the professional, and focus on the important aspects that you need to deal with. At times, energetic entrepreneurs prefer to accomplish all the tasks by themselves, but this policy leads to the loss of productivity. Therefore, before hiring a VA, you should think whether the candidate can help you with the tasks you need to be done. Also Check List of Tasks That You Can Outsource To VAs. Not coming up with specific expectations and goals A goal-oriented approach while hiring VA's is likely to yield more lucrative results. You need to set up specific expectations and goals when you hire a VA. You can set targets at regular intervals and assess the effectiveness of the collaborative effort. Besides, the professionals working as virtual assistant for businessmen come with a diverse range of skills. You need to select the right candidate for your purpose, depending on the nature of the work. When you hire the personnel, you should set your own goals and evaluate the progress from time to time. Set parameters to measure the success, keeping an eye on the starting and finishing dates. At the same time, you need to keep a watch on the budget. You should encourage the VA to ask questions, in case any ambiguity creeps in the operational process. Not keeping a check on the progress When you start working on a new project with a VA, you should keep a check on the performance of the candidate. This will help you to keep a track on the quality of service the VA is providing you with. As a marketer, you should have a complete knowledge about the business needs of virtual assistant and establish checkpoints in your projects. This will enable you assess the quality of service you are receiving and the extent to which your business is being benefited. Not aligning your business goals and VA's goals together It is important to establish a professional relationship with the VA and align your goals together. When the goals of your business and the VA merges together, the productivity gets a boost. You need to take time to understand the person, the nature of work that he does, the strengths and weaknesses and so on. This will help you to manage the task in a better way and delegate them with suitable responsibilities. Successful business firms collaborate well with their virtual assistants and develop a good rapport for optimal benefits. Whether you hire a remote personal assistant for appointment Scheduling or any other task, make sure to align your goals. Companies from various sectors in the industry are hiring virtual assistants to simplify their tasks. You may get across to one of the established platforms for virtual assistant services. You should be aware of your exact expectations from the virtual assistant before you collaborate with them. This will make your approach goal-oriented and help you increase your productivity.
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A successful business relies on deft handling of the customers. Under no circumstance can you ignore this aspect as customers are the most valuable assets for any business. These days, live chat has emerged as a key component of customer support mechanism for different companies. You should integrate it accurately on your business platform to increase interaction with the customers. It enables the sellers to engage in real-time conversations with the customers, building up a good rapport with them. It is necessary to keep the customers satisfied and those who overlook this very basic rule of business are sure to crumble down sooner or in immediate future itself. It brings you an opportunity to enhance overall customer support experience. According to a research conducted in 2013 by one of the most revered sources in the domain, live chat offers the highest degree of satisfaction to the clients. With figures around 73%, it has fared better than email, which provides 66% satisfaction and phone, providing 44% satisfaction. Today, companies get across to their clients through contact centres offering remarkable live chat customer service. Why is live chat a more effective option? While the customers browse the products online, certain queries may crop up in their mind. Using live chat, they can directly place the queries before the executives of the company. The professionals at the contact centre reply instantly through this option. Thus, the customers get a better knowledge about the product or service. It is a more human approach to the customers. Besides, by leveraging the potential of up-selling and cross-selling strategies, the sales of a company can elevate to newer heights. Thus the benefits of live chat can’t be overlooked. How can you boost up your conversions through live chat? It can boost up your conversion rate in many ways among which the following ways are most common and notable Providing detailed knowledge Live chat customer support executives are well-versed about the products of the company. They have the features, pricing and other specifications at their fingertips. When the customers reach out to them through live chat, they can provide them with a detailed guidance about the products that they might find interesting. Thus, they bridge their aspirations and budget, resulting in sales which is what every company needs. Assessing the company On analysing the trends of sales over a period of time, companies with live chat support option in its website can get an idea about the phase when maximum customers visit their website. Live chat services should be made available during this time. The contact centres increase or decrease the number of support executives accordingly. In the global market, they keep an eye on the time-zones of different countries. Thus, they can have a better control over their customers by adjusting the support strength. Personalizing the experience The agents providing live chat customer service should have a good understanding of the customers. On analysing the past trends, the experts get an idea about the most popular products, price ranges that the customers can afford and their overall approach during the purchase. This information comes handy when they communicate to the customers through live chat. When the agents are well-informed about the buying habits and aptitudes of the customers, conversions are more likely to take place. It helps the company to strategize their marketing policy. Incorporating the photo of the live chat agent adds to the level of personal touch. Timing the approach It is necessary for the contact centre to assess activities of the customers when they approach them for ensuring best live chat customer service provision. A visitor may not be willing to purchase a product at a given time. A live chat pop up may irritate him if the timing is wrong. Therefore, the experts need to determine the right time to approach the customers. Effective engagement with the customers results in sales. The agents need to watch out for the activities of the visitors on the website. Option of live chat services should assist him when he would need it. Being pushy will hinder his browsing and paves way for negative impression. Trust building Experienced agents in live chat companies engage the customers, educating them about the products. The interpersonal communication between the agent and the customer helps in the establishment of trust between them which is very necessary to influence the decision making process of a person on your website. The executives boost up the chances of conversion by building up the brand image of the company through their skillful communication and trust establishment. Proactive approach Customers exhibit different behaviours and thus they show variation in their approach to the company. A particular section of the buyers never asks questions on their own, unless the support executives prod them. They feel reluctant to ask questions due to the fear of being embarrassed or sounding stupid. They visit the website, have a look at the products and silently leave without asking any questions. A proactive approach on the part of the agents can convert these visitors. However, identifying such customers is where the trick lies and a skilled live chat executive master the same. Respecting personal space Every customer has a personal space, so a wrongly timed chat attempt may annoy him which is least desirable. Often an aggressive marketing strategy puts off the mood of the customer. The agents should give them the opportunity to explore the products. They might reveal themselves with a polite greeting and wait for the customer to make the next move. If the latter needs live chat help, he might reply to the chat or simply ignore it. The agents should not press the customers too much. Using the right language As the live chat service providers work remotely, the visitors are unable to see their body language. Therefore, it is necessary for the agent to use the right language to assist the customers. The questions should be placed only after studying the requirements of the customers. They should keep away from using strong language on live chat; using polite and honest words always help. Today, almost every business understands the importance of live chat and needs skilled customer service agents to provide necessary support to their customers. These agents are tech-savvy and possess in-depth marketing knowledge. Companies are increasingly pairing up with reputed contact centres to enhance the quality of experience for customers. And it definitely is a wise move to make. Most of the businesses in the corporate sector maintain a good customer-company relationship through third party call centres. The reason is that it is quite expensive to have an in-house call centre infrastructure. Also dealing with customers hailing from multiple geographical locations with different levels of expectations needs immense expertise. So, companies hire reputed call centre services providers to avail flawless services when it comes to customer care. In order to choose the best call center, a company has to scrutinise the third-party services providers using certain criteria. Some of the most relevant among them are enumerated below. |
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