How’s your concentration today?

Many people find that contant interruptions are the enemy of productivity, but there is a solution.  If you put in place an 'disruption minimisation strategy' you'll be amazed at the difference it could make.

Case study: The distracted consultant

A certain industrial technology consultant has many complex reports to write for his clients, and finds the telephone a disruptive distraction.  However, he doesn’t want to miss potential new enquiries, or disappoint existing clients when they ring him, by not picking up their calls.

He noticed that he was particularly productive if he could get all his report writing done before lunch, so he started diverting his calls to his remote admin support office every day until 2pm.  His part time telephone answering team simply records the details of his callers, and passes his messages to him by email.

After lunch he returns their calls, secure in the knowledge that he has completed his more demanding work within deadline, and fully confident that his clients have been well looked after while he did so.  Interestingly, he has noticed a significant increase in his productivity and a very welcome reduction in his stress levels. He also finds that, by the time he calls his clients back, the admin team have answered most of the enquiries for him, which saves him even more time and effort.

So there you have it – diverting your calls for even part of the day can deliver more than just the obvious benefits, and could be an immeasurable bonus to a small company.  We know this for a fact – we’ve been helping businesses flourish since 1983.

If you’re not getting this sort of service from your admin support team, or if you’ve never used remote admin support and would like to know more about how doing so could significantly help your business, call Standby for a no-obligation chat on 08456 838 678.
 
We’ll work with you to deliver just what you’re looking for.

Who answers the calls when you’re away?

Somebody should - or who knows what you might miss?  But if yours is a small company, maybe even a one-man organisation, who will field those all-important enquiries?

A machine?

You could put an answer machine in place so at least there'll be some response for the caller.  The machine could take messages for you but that would leave the enquiry hanging in the air until your return.  By that time, you could well have lost the lead to someone else, and anyway, it’s well known that about 70% of callers won’t leave a message on a machine.  They want to talk to somebody.

A pal?

Alternatively you could ask a colleague, family member or friend to field enquiries while you’re away, but do they understand your business sufficiently well?  Will they give your calls the dedicated and professional attention they deserve?  Haven’t they got other things to do that will distract them?

A call centre?

You could get the calls fielded by an impersonal answering service where your caller will be told that you’re away and will have to return the call on your return.  That won’t give a terribly good impression of your business and, again, might lead to you losing that lead.  It sounds bleak, doesn’t it?  You might ask yourself, can you actually take the risk of going away at all?  Of course you can.  You simply need to put in place a professional remote administrative service with all day cover.

Tip: Choose a quality personalised admin support provider

A team offering a service of this type will make a point of familiarising themselves with your business and your client base, and will provide a reliable means of keeping your clients reassured and satisfied until you get back from your break.

Case study: The training company owner

One client who regularly uses a remote admin assistant is the owner of a busy London-based training company.  She prefers actually delivering the actual courses to chasing people for pre-course questionnaires and payments, and sending out handbooks and feedback forms.  So her virtual admin assistance service does all the tedious stuff for her, along with answering her telephone enquiries, updating her website and database, and booking course venues.

They also cover her holiday absences, continuing to take course bookings and answer enquiries, sending out invoices and receipts, and answering questions about costs, venue locations and course content.  Just before each course begins, the volume of enquiries increases dramatically and telephone calls tend to come in thick and fast.  Happily, the admin support office has numerous phone lines and plenty of people available to answer them, so nobody gets an engaged signal or a voicemail message when they call.

The business owner can go on holiday with a clear conscience and a light heart, knowing that her business will not suffer as a result of her being away.  When she gets back to work, instead of feeling stressed within hours, the benefits of her break stay with her and she works all the more productively as a result.

The remote service is actually located 150 miles away from her and she has only met with them once or twice but the set up works perfectly.  This is because the admin team have worked hard to gain a thorough grasp of what she does and how she herself likes to interact with her clients.  It should be noted that her clients have no idea that her support team are so far away, or that they are not direct employees of her company.  This is Standby.  This is remote admin support at its best.

So there you have it - a professional and intelligent telephone answering service is more than just a call centre, and can be an immeasurable bonus to a small company.  At Standby we know this for a fact – we’ve been helping businesses flourish since 1983. See this webpage for details.

If you’re not getting this sort of service from your admin support team, or if you’ve never used remote admin support and would like to know more about how doing so could significantly help your business, you need to call Standby for a no-obligation chat on 08456 838 678.

We’ll work with you to deliver just what you’re looking for.

Who can help sort out the day from hell?

Every smart business owner knows that those non-profitable time consuming back office tasks that nobody loves are best delegated to someone else. Invoice raising, database cleansing, credit control, internet research for accommodation, venues or products - all these are necessary but they really eat into your day and keep you from getting on with what you do best – seeing clients and making money. And what about the practical day-to-day things that go wrong now and then?  They can really thrust a spanner in the works.

If you haven’t got an in-house team of admin people behind you to take tasks like these off your hands, you can pass them across to a remote admin support service. But they would be dealing with your business affairs and your clients – so how do you evaluate who would be the right people for the job?

Referral – to save time, the preferred route is to seek an introduction from someone you know who has used such a service, and who has high standards and expects professional and reliable delivery from suppliers.

Recommendation – the second possibility is to look for an admin support firm with a long pedigree and plenty of testimonials from satisfied customers. Anyone who can’t satisfy these criteria is unlikely to be able to support your business adequately – you need to be confident that your own clients and contacts will get from this team the sort of service you yourself would provide.

Interview – this involves checking out personally all the virtual office teams you can find to reassure yourself that they can deliver on their promises. This could be time-consuming but meeting them should answer most of your questions – if they appear knowledgeable, professional and reliable, this is a good sign. They should be able to provide a free trial of their services for a limited period – if not, ask them how they intend to prove their abilities.

The ideal remote admin support team, however, will be found through a combination of all these routes. Preferably, they will be known to at least one person you know professionally, would be able to provide ample glowing references and would be willing to meet you and demonstrate delivery of their support offering.

Tip: Choose a quality provider with whom you feel comfortable working

A team offering a meaningful admin support service will think for itself and anticipate your problems, rather than simply being reactive.  Things can change quickly in business and you need to be sure your back up team can stay one step ahead.

Case study: The stranded architect

An architect is en route to a site meeting in a field somewhere out in the sticks but develops car trouble along the way. He calls his remote admin assistance service and asks if someone can notify the client and the contractors that he will be late for the meeting. He then calls his motoring rescue service, and even though they arrive quickly, they can’t repair the car at the roadside so they must ferry him and his car to their regional depot.

The depot is in the opposite direction to the appointment and the rescue service won’t leave the poor man wandering about on the dual carriageway, so he asks them to take him to the nearest roadside services. Meanwhile, back at base, the remote admin service team have called a minicab firm and arranged for the architect to be collected from the drop off point and taken to his appointment, and they have also informed the client of his estimated time of arrival.

The client tells the admin support team that it’s starting to rain so he and the contractor are going to take a break at a nearby restaurant and will wait for the architect there. They’ve tried to ring him, but his mobile phone appears to be dead. The admin assistant tries to ring him too, but she can't get a connection either.

She then telephones the mini cab company and asks them to relay the message to their driver so that he can take the architect straight to the lunch venue. The architect arrives there at the same time as his client and the contractor, and they eat lunch together before moving back to the development site.

Meanwhile the virtual admin support team have located a hire car for the architect to use on his way back, and booked a cab to collect him from site and deliver him at the car hire depot. That’s quite a comprehensive service!

So there you have it – the right admin support team will think ahead on your behalf and come up with practical solutions to your every business problem. At Standby we know this for a fact – we’ve been helping businesses flourish since 1983. See this webpage for details.

If you’re not getting this sort of service from your admin support team, or if you’ve never used remote admin support and would like to know more about how doing so could significantly help your business, call Standby for a no-obligation chat on 08456 838 678.

We’ll work with you to deliver just what you’re looking for.