5 Awesome Collaboration Tools

There are a lot of tools out there that you can use to collaborate with others.  Here’s a list of my favourites, none of which should be totally unheard of.

1. Dropbox-   My favourite way to share files with clients.  I’ve got folders for all of my clients and most of their documents and graphics are stored in their dropbox folder.  I also use it personally to upload photos I’ve taken from my phone, to store documents & music for my tablet and to share things (mostly photos or video) with friends and family. 
2. Google Calendar –  I use it to set appointments for clients, my clients give me access to their calendar so I can add and change appointments.  I also store information like their phone number, their PA’s name & number in the appointment just in case there is some problem later on.  It means that both the client and I can just go to the appointment and all the information we need is there.
   I also use it to make sure ALL my appointments from my personal and my work calendars are in the calendar on my phone so I have one calendar I can check for everything. 

   ** If you use Outlook as well and want to be able to see all your appointments on one calendar, grab a copy of Google Calendar Sync and it’ll take care of it for you. 

3. Google Docs - I use this mostly to make presentations, but also for documents and spreadsheets where Office is out of the question.   It also can be used for creating & editing images and allows you to create forms which it can then collate as responses are received. 
4. Skype- I don’t have a landline, so I make most of my calls via Skype.  I have it set up to display my mobile number which gives people a number to easily call back on.  I can easily download a spreadsheet of calls made during a month so I can track how much I’m spending on behalf of a client if I want to bill call charges.  I also have it loaded on my mobile phone so I can accept Skype calls when I’m out of the office.  If you do this, just beware that you may chew up your data allowance. 
5. 37Signals Suite – I’m a huge fan of the 37signals products.  I was introduced to them by a client, I recommend them to clients and I use some of them for myself.  There are very limited free versions available if you don’t have a large need (I use the free versions of Highrise & Basecamp) and there are several purchase options.  Lastly, a huge selling point for me is how helpful they are with any queries whether it’s a helpdesk enquiry or a feature request.  The individual products are:

• Basecamp – for project management
• Highrise – CRM
• Backpack – to share files
• Campfire – for collaboration

That’s the list of tools I can’t live without.  If you have another collaboration tool that you’d use instead of one of these, or for a different purpose please let me know in the comments.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,000 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 17 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Customer Service: Good Nights Sleep or Nightmare

I’m not doing a proper post today – instead I want to send you off to an excellent post over at Business Pundit that makes two key points regarding Customer Service and has a very interesting infographic as well.

Firstly, it’s entirely up to you how you want to balance profit versus quality of life and you probably will have to make a compromise one way or another.  That’s not a bad thing and it doesn’t mean that you don’t value customer service.  Just that you are realistic about what you can provide in the time  you have available, about what your company provides its customers, and who you want your customers to be.

Secondly, there are loonies out there.  It’s up to you how much time you’re prepared to spend on them.  But be aware that while people who have a genuine gripe or just want to have a good customer experience will work with you to solve any problems – the loonies will not.  The loonies may be vocal in their complaints – but you’ll probably never be able to satisfy them.  If you do, it will be at a cost worth far more than the problem was worth. If you feel you need to be universally loved then by all means, go for it.  If you want to use your time to work in your business and provide your regular customers with great service, you’re better off ignoring the permanently dissatisfied. 

One last thing that you should really keep in mind when looking at the infographic, which is mostly concerned with customer complaints, is that it’s much easier to prevent the customer from having complaints in the first instance.  So make sure you have your procedures and quality checks in place and make adjustments when necessary.

How a Virtual Assistant could help with…your annual break

It’s that time of year when those of us in Australia are just about to start our summer holiday season. Last year at around this time I posted taking about How a Virtual Assistant could help with… your holiday preparations and earlier last year I did a post on How a Virtual Assistant could help with…travel both of these posts detail some of the things a Virtual Assistant can do to help you to have a stress free break. 

 

Listed here are FIVE things you should definitely get your Virtual Assistant to help with so you can relax and have a real break:

 

1. Email

There are a few ways to handle email:

• An out of office message – although that will mean urgent issues are left until you return and clients with a genuine emergency may have major issues.
• An out of office message with a secondary email address for urgent queries – because what is urgent to some of your clients may not be urgent in the universe the rest of us inhabit.  By having a secondary email address for emergencies with a message along the lines of “please contact my Virtual Assistant at  awesome@superva.com if your query is urgent” will allow your clients to contact someone if they feel there is an emergency.  Your Virtual Assistant will then be able to either solve the issue themselves, contact you if it is a genuine emergency or let the client know the issue will be worked on once you return.
• Give your Virtual Assistant access to your emails and have them flag non-urgent matters for your return and handle as much as possible.  Pretty much the same as the above, except everything comes through to your Virtual Assistant and you come home to an inbox that’s relatively empty with items for you to deal with highlighted.

 

2. Social Media

Sure, you can continue to do a bit of social media while you’re away – but isn’t the point of a break to have a break?  If you want to get away from it all, but still give your company social media exposure then you can develop a content calendar with your Virtual Assistant and get them to post some interesting articles, messages that you’ve pre-written, photos, seasonal wishes etc.  And don’t forget to make sure your Virtual Assistant is monitoring all your accounts so they can let you know if there is anything that you need to deal with.

 

3. Seasonal messages

If you send your clients gifts or cards your Virtual Assistant can handle the purchase and sending of both.  Your Virtual Assistant can make sure that your clients know when you’ll be away and what procedures are in place in case of emergency.  Your Virtual Assistant can make sure your website, email responses and social media accounts are all updated with your holiday hours and make sure they’re removed once you return.

 

4. Point of Contact

Your Virtual Assistant can be a point of contact for clients, suppliers, co-workers, travel agencies and any other stakeholders who may need to contact you while you’re away.  Your Virtual Assistant can probably resolve many of the “urgent” issues without disturbing you.  That way anything that does come through to you will come with a full back story, details of what’s already been done and the possibility that you can solve it with a minimum of fuss.

 

5. 2012 Plans

If you want to hit the ground running in the new year – you should definitely have been thinking about your plans for 2012 already.  Whether you’re just making a few small changes or even updating things such as your content calendars, marketing plan & business plan, or you are planning major changes for the upcoming year – it’s as good a time as any to get things documented and added to your corporate documentation.  So get together those notes, ideas in need of further research and information sources and let your Virtual Assistant get them organised, collated and ready for your return.

 

So that’s my list, as always you should make sure you discuss the issues that worry you the most.  There are no set rules, just discuss your needs with your Virtual Assistant and see what they can come up with to help you.

 Have a wonderful break and best wishes for a prosperous 2012.

 

Google+ Business Pages: 3 common questions

This week Google has opened business pages and any business is now able to create their own business page.  If you’re interested in creating your own page, here are some quick how-to’s for 3 of the most asked questions. 

First of all, the most important button that you will need to find your way around your pages is the drop down arrow on the left of the page, next to your avatar and below your name (1 below).

I made a page, but I logged out and now I’ve logged back in I can’t find it!

Yep, the first time I did that, I accidentally found it straight away, but I had no idea what I’d clicked on to find it.  Fortunately, I found the down arrow (1) secret pretty quickly.  Just click it and you can choose what page to use.  Just beware that whatever page you are using is the page you will be posting as.   So as always when posting online – be double careful that you are using the appropriate page.

How do I create a business page?

There are a couple of ways you can start a business page in Google+ depending on where you’re starting from. 

• If you’re on your personal page click on the “Create a Google + Page” icon which is towards the bottom of the right hand side of the page.
• If you’re on a business page, click the down arrow, select manage pages and click Create
• Alternatively you can just go HERE 

Select the most appropriate category for your business and go from there.  There are lots of sites offering advice on how to create a great page so if you want some inspiration, have a look at these posts from:

• Hubspot - How to Optimize Your Google+ Business Page
• Mashable – 10 Tips and Tricks for Better Google+ Brand Pages
• Google – Google+ Pages: Connect with all the things you care about
• Google+ – Google+ Your Business
• SEO Best Tips – Google Releases Google Pages

I made a page, and now I want to delete it

Easy as… just click the down arrow (1) and select Manage your pages.  There you’ll find an option to Delete your page.  Just a note while you’re at it – the Manage button will do just the same as if you’d selected the page from the drop down list.

Have you got a Google+ page yet?  Feel free to post a link, and please follow Sharyn Munro Virtual Assistance Google+ Page.

Customer Service – Inspiring Trust

It’s not often mentioned as a key component of customer service, but trust is probably the most valuable area of customer service. 

• If your clients see you as trustworthy, they will understand if you make mistakes and be more willing to help you resolve them.  If handled correctly, you may even have them become one of your loudest advocates.
• If your clients see you as distrustful, mistakes will probably be seen as a deliberate result of poor service, quality, care or combination of them all. 
• If a client has no opinion on your trustworthiness – a mistake can tip them either way.  It will all depend on how you handle the error.

Trustworthiness is also a large factor in deciding what information a client is willing to share with you, and in which tasks they pass to you.  It’s in the best interests of both you and your client for them to feel comfortable giving you whatever most needs doing.  Otherwise the client is likely to start wondering why they use you, and you will probably get bored working with the client.

 ________________________________________________________________________

 

So how do you get a client to trust you?  There’s a few basic things that you should be doing as a matter of course, but it’s worth reminding yourself of their importance from time to time.  They all revolve around one simple idea:

Be honest

Yep, that’s it, the simplest thing of all – be scrupulously honest at all times.  The main thing to keep in mind is that you should communicate with the client. So if there’s any anomaly to the work practice, tell the client.  Because sometimes honesty is as much about the appearance of a situation as it is about the actual facts.

So what sort of things should you tell the client?  It will depend a lot on the client, the situation and what you feel comfortable with.  Some examples are:

1. If you get it wrong
2. If you’ve never done it before, if you think you know what to do
3. If you’re going to outsource some of their work
4. If you won’t be able to make a deadline
5. If you have serious concerns about something you’re working on

1. If a client points out an error – don ‘t make excuses.  By all means tell them how it happened, but don’t make excuses, just thank them for letting you know and tell them how you’ll fix it for them.

2. Be as transparent as possible in all facets of your work.  I’m not talking about those times when you’re not an expert, but you know what you’re doing – it’s the times when you have to start from scratch to learn something new.  If you discuss it with a client they’re often happy for you to learn as you go – but if you tell a client after you’ve done something that you had no idea how to do it, it just makes you seem amateurish and can lead the client to wonder what else you’ve just been making up as you go.

3. If you need to get someone else in to help because you have too much on your plate, because you need specialist help, because you don’t have the equipment/knowledge/resources.  This might depend on what you’re doing for the client – if it involves sensitive information you should definitely tell the client before you subcontract or outsource.

4. If a job is taking longer than you thought it would and you’re sure you can’t make the deadline – let the client know ASAP. It will give them the option to get extra assistance, extend the deadline, change the scope of the job or whatever other solution they come up with.  If you leave it till the last minute, you limit their options at best and at worst can cost them money. 

5. Don’t do something that you consider wrong for a client.  If they ask you to, tell them why you don’t feel comfortable doing it.  They may be able to explain something and you’ll be willing to do it.  They may be OK with you not doing this one thing.  Or you may decide that you’re not a good fit.  There’s no rule and no point judging others

________________________________________________________________________

 

How do you make sure you do the right thing by yourself and your clients?

• Set your boundaries and stick to them.  It’s a personal thing, so don’t be afraid to spend some time thinking about what’s OK and what’s not OK by you.  If in doubt, consider how you’d feel if the situations were reversed.
• Write them down.  Make them policy.  This makes it much easier when you have a problem and you can refer to documented standards.  It’s also useful when other people represent the company.  A communications or trust policy gives them firm guidelines on what is expected.

Lastly, keep in mind that if you aren’t comfortable communicating problems to a client – then maybe you shouldn’t be working with that particular client.  Not everybody is a good fit.

How a Virtual Assistant could help with… cleaning up your files

A Virtual Assistant can help you to clean up and organise your files regardless of whether they’re physical paper files or electronic files stored on your computer or in the cloud.  

If you can start out with a filing system in operation, organisation will always be simpler.  However it’s usually not until you are trying to locate a specific item within a large volume of files that are kept in no particular order that you realise how badly you need a system.

Paperwork

Whether you have an office full of filing cabinets, a paperless office, or a mixture of both – at some point you will have to deal with the paperwork and put it into some sort of order. A Virtual Assistant can help ease the pain and take a lot of the hassle off your plate.

A Virtual Assistant can help by:

• Setting up a filing system whether it’s a paper file or starting an e-filing system

• Scanning documents to create an e-file instead of storing paper files

OR

• Finding someone to do the scanning for you, particularly if you have a large backlog

• Developing a schedule to make sure you keep documents for as long as is necessary for compliance.

• Creating systems so you know when documents can be safely discarded

Computers

Whether all your files are mostly stored in the cloud or taking up space on your hard drive – your Virtual Assistant can help de-clutter and sort you out.

Some of the things your Virtual Assistant can do to help organise your computer is:

• Organise your emails using tags, categories, stars and folders.

• Create autotext or templates for frequently used emails and phrases

• Sort your documents, images, videos etc and make sure you have a consistent naming format that makes it simple to put your hands on what you need.

• Make sure you have templates for all the documents and presentations that you use on a regular basis

• Set up an easy access system so you can access your essential files from all of your devices

So that’s just a few of the ways a Virtual Assistant can help you to clean up your files. There’s always more ways we can help, it’s just a matter of discussing your pain points with your Virtual Assistant. Plus, if you are have a case of dire disorganisation and have a Virtual Assistant who is local to you, you might consider asking them if they would come to your office and do a once-off organisational session to get you on top of everything.

3 Cool things you can do in Gmail

Gmail is possibly the most popular email service available these days and there are a heap of ways you can use it to make your life easier.  I’ve already told you about  Cleaning out your Gmail inbox and Organising Gmail.  Now here are 3 cool Gmail features that you can use to work faster, better and safer.

 

Play with your Gmail address

 There are two awesome features in Gmail to help you control what’s done with what y ou receive. 

Firstly: you can use a + sign to add additional text after your user name. ie: firstnamelastnameetc+newsletters@gmail.com

Why: Well, you can use the example above to then then filter those emails to your newsletter file for later reading.  Of you could use +website name – and then you’ll be able to see what you get from any website you’ve given your email to.

Secondly: Gmail doesn’t recognise fullstops (periods) in an email address.  So for example these are all legitimate email addresses that will come to me:

• Firstname.lastname.etc@gmail.com
• FirstnameLastname.etc@gmail.com
• Firstname.Lastnameetc@gmail.com
• And so on.

Why: Well you can assign different email addresses to different people. 

• My family can email me at Firstname.lastnameetc@gmail.com, 
• My clients at Firstname.Lastname.etc@gmail.com, 
• My friends at FirstnameLastname.etc@gmail.com 
• Each gets flagged so I know which I should check first, second and thirdly.

Attachment reminder 

 I’ve only just noticed this one, and I’m going to pretend that’s because I never forget to add my attachments.  I’d be mighty pleased if you’d all pretend to believe me.  When sending an email with the phrases such as “I’m attaching, “see attached” and “attached is”.  So if you frequently forget to attach the attachment, you should probably get used to including these types of phrases in your emails. 

• Please see attachment
• Attached is a picture of….
• I’m attaching the file

And a quick hint for anyone who does have a bit of a trigger finger when it comes to pressing send - make addressing the email the LAST thing you do.  That way you can double check the attachment, the subject, the spelling and even the tone and
if you accidentally press send to soon, it won't go to anybody anyway.

 

Offline mail

If you  use the Chrome browser (and if you can, you really should) you can now download an app that allows you to use Gmail offline.  It’s great for when you’re working with an unsteady internet connection, or if you’ve got no internet connection but want to tidy up your existing emails, or write some new ones.  It’s available HERE from the app store in Chrome.  Once it’s been installed, you can access it via a New Tab and work with your Gmail messages without an internet connection.  Whenever an internet connection is activated and Gmail Offline is open, it will automatically synchronise messages and send.

 

Two Ears & One Mouth: Listening Skills to Improve your Customer Service

When it comes to providing excellent customer service, one of the key traits is the ability to pay attention to the client and understand what they are saying.  The faster and more precisely you can “get” what the client really wants, the better your service will be perceived.

Pay attention: (So basic you probably already know it. Right?)

• Stop doing anything else
• Look at the person speaking to you
• Don’t start formulating your response while they’re still talking

Be body conscious:

• Fiddling , tapping your feet or fingers or otherwise acting impatiently will discourage conversation
• If you appear closed (arms crossed etc) to what the client is saying they’re more likely to become confrontational or aggressive
• Keep an open posture to encourage conversation
• Make “listening” noises & actions such as nodding, hmm, yes  and aha at appropriate times

Make sure you understand:

• Ask questions if you need to
• Rephrase & summarise what the client has just said to be certain you’re both on the same page
• Feel free to pause before responding to gather your thoughts

Some hints:

• If you’re finding it hard to stay focussed, mentally repeat every word they say to help keep focus and help retain the information.
• Look directly at the speaker and pay attention to both their words and body language – try not to be creepy about it though!  Smile and nod etc  so you don’t appear over intense.
• Try to keep your emotions out of it.  By all means, query anything that upsets you, but by querying it matter of factly rather than emotionally you can encourage conversation rather than confrontation or defence.

I do realise that it’s not easy to put these tips into practice but even if you just concentrate on learning one or two at a time you’ll find that over time, they just become habit. 

If you want to test your current skills, here’s a great self assessed Listening Skills Test.

How a Virtual Assistant could help with…writing a business plan

There are a number of ways a Virtual Assistant can help you create a Business Plan.  While there is no way you can escape making the decisions and setting the direction, a Virtual Assistant can take many of the other pressures off you.  A Virtual Assistant can help with every stage of the Business Plan process from the preparation to ensuring your business plan remains useful and up-to-date for the life of your business. 

Here are just a few of the ways a Virtual Assistant could make your life easier during the production of your Business Plan:

 

PRE-PRODUCTION

In the preparation phase for your Business Plan a Virtual Assistant can:

• do the research for your business plan
• create a template for your business plan
• source business plans from similar companies for you to review
• help collect and collate the financials for your business plan

 

PRODUCTION

Once you are ready to create the Business Plan a Virtual Assistant can:

• type your business plan
• find and/or create images, graphics and graphs for your business plan
• edit your draft business plan
• proofread your business plan
• organise the printing, collating and binding of your business plan

 

POST-PRODUCTION

After your Business Plan has been completed, a Virtual Assistant can:

•  ensure that copies of your business plan are distributed to all necessary parties
•  diarise and initiate the regular review of your business plan
•  research changes in your industry that might impact your business plan
•  assist with being sure you’re working towards the correct objectives and initiate review when necessary

 

Of course, there you may want to do some of these things yourself, or you may have other things you’d want a Virtual Assistant to help with – so the best idea is to talk to your Virtual Assistant and see how they can best help you.