Things your VA could do for you - Part Five: Inbox Management

Whether you're out of the office for a couple of days at a trade show or even sunning yourself on the beach for a week or more (ooh, that sounds good), it's unlikely you've perfected the trick of being in two places at once. Keeping up with your inbox when you've got your hands full (or even when you're just trying to relax) can be a real headache.

Many businesses call upon a Virtual Assistant to look after the inboxes of key staff. This could be on an ongoing basis or just from time-to-time when the need arises. A Virtual Assistant is here to offer you flexible support that releases you to get on with the most important stuff and to help you manage the rest.

We can respond to email enquiries, clear out spam and unwanted mails and pick up on urgent messages that need a response and put together a digest on either a daily or weekly basis, highlighting actions that you need to take where appropriate.

For more information on how this could work for you, drop us a line: info@judesach.co.uk or call 07971 490462.

Things your VA could do for you - Part Four: Research and Surveys

Knowing your customers and competitors is fundamental to building a sustainable business. A key tool available to even the smallest business or inedividual entrepreneur is to conduct research. Customer research can take the form of satisfaction surveys and post-event feedback, while competitor research may include evaluations of products and service to identify points of competition and strengths and weaknesses in your own product range.

We have conducted training needs analyses, event feedback surveys, learner surveys, market research and competitor data gathering for clients and can even produce reports providing analysis of results.

Whether you need an online survey or a more detailed telephone interview carried out, talk to your Virtual Assistant about how we can help you. Drop us a line: info@judesach.co.uk or call 07971 490462.

Things your VA could do for you - Part Three: Manage Training & Event Bookings

If you're holding a customer training event, open day or even meetings at a trade show or conference, managing responses from customers can add a considerable short-term workload that is just the sort of thing your Virtual Assistant can help you with.

Let us look after the whole administrative element to your event while you get on with delivering the goods on the day. We can handle the influx of enquiries, send leaflets, information and joining instructions, check special requirements and even follow-up with post-event satisfaction surveys, and produce and send certificates of attendance.

Things your VA could do for you - Part Two: Blog and Twitter Updates

Having a social media presence is becoming an increasingly important element of marketing strategies for companies of all shapes and sizes. Talking to customers and responding to questions via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like is just as important as having an up-to-date website.

Unfortunately making regular updates to your blog or twitter feed can become time consuming, not to mention the challenge of finding inspiration.

From a potential customer's point of view, finding that blogs and tweets are current and new information is published regularly indicates that a company is active and engaging with its customers.

As a Virtual Assistance service, we tweet and blog regularly on our clients' behalves. We agree a schedule for updates and have talk through upcoming events and news items on a regular basis and then we just get on with it. Of course there's always scope to add extra items at short notice or to change tack as new information emerges too, so your social media presence reflects your organisation most effectively.

So, if you'd like to hand over your social media updates to someone who actually enjoys it, drop us a line: socialmedia@judesach.co.uk or call 07971 490462.

Inbox overflowing?

These may be truisms, but it does no harm to be reminded of them occasionally:

1. Successful businesses know that it's not about working harder but rather working smarter.  
2. Recognising the need to hand over the mundane and repetitive jobs is key to using your skills most productively.
3. Email is one of the biggest causes of interruption and distraction in the modern workplace.

So, when you got back to work after the various holidays and high days we've enjoyed recently, were you confronted with an overflowing inbox and a to-do list as long as your arm?

Free up hours each week by outsourcing administrative and organisational tasks and you'll have time to focus on what really matters to your organisation.

Our flexible range of services can be tailored to meet your requirements and budget, so why not drop us a line   - info@judesach.co.uk.

What's in a name?

Now here's a thing: Jude seems to be a popular name for Virtual Assistants.

I've just fallen into the trap of doing a little "vanity googling" (to check for positioning in search results of course) and have found another two VAs called Jude and one with Jude as a middle name just in the first page of natural results... can that be statistically significant?

Things your VA could do for you - Part One: Response Handling

One of the paradoxes of sales and marketing is that when you're at your busiest is also when you should be redoubling your marketing efforts.

Being flat out in the office processing orders and delivering to customers means it can be hard to stay on top of other acitivities such as responding to new enquiries generated by a recent advertisement, trade event or leaflet drop.

This is a great time to use a Virtual Assistant to help "iron out the lumps" of life in a small to medium-sized business. A VA can deal with email and telephone enquiries and provide information to potential customers, send information, samples, brochures or leaflets in either electronic or hard copy format. This frees up time in your main team to look after the work in hand and make sure you have happy customers all round - existing and potential alike.