Is your VA damaging your business -- without your even knowing it?
I just posted elsewhere about a helpdesk that I contacted and got a, well, rather unhelpful response from.
I was going to post the following thoughts in that thread, but due to the title, I thought a lot of folks might not read what I'm about to say, which might be important; I don't know. You tell me.
It ain't some bolt out of the blue revelation or anything. And I'm sure it's been brought up 48 million times on this board before. But it might bear repeating. I dunno. Anyway...
* If you have a VA (virtual assistant), do you know what he or she is actually doing?
How much is s/he helping your business grow and generate happy customers (read: high likelihood of referrals) versus leaving customers or potential clients with a bad taste in their mouth?
Yes, s/he is helping your business grow because they're freeing up your time to do "higher order" tasks like shore up JVs and so on. Fine. So in that respect, they're helping your business grow. Agreed.
But how much damage are they doing at the same time?
How do you know?
I was thinking about this the other day in relation to my day job. Our receptionist is young and cute and full of energy and, well, a walking stereotype of the ditzy receptionist.
I've had cause to be in and around the reception area a fair bit lately and I'm horrified at some of the stuff that comes out of her mouth given that she is the front-line image for the business.
I've never seen or heard her be rude to a client, but she doesn't seem to consider that people waiting to see whoever it is that they're there to see might actually hear all about her private conversations and the other asides she makes to the other gals who work on that desk.
And she's not exactly new there so it makes me wonder whether the boss has heard any of her clunkers. Clunkers that I, at least, figure must leave clients questioning the professionalism of the place -- even if everything else is run perfectly. I wonder how many people wonder about why she hasn't been told to be less inappropriate and what, in turn, that says about the culture of the company as a whole.
But who knows, I might just be having a momentary attack of the conservative grumpy old *******s tonight.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into it.
Nothing a spot of fox-hunting, followed by a cognac and a cigar wouldn't assuage, I'm sure, old boy.
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I asked about a particular website-building software tool recently via that company's Helpdesk. The answer I got was less than helpful.
I asked if there was a demo that I could take for a test-drive. I wanted to look at the Admin interface and see what could be done with the templates.
The response I got was "Nope, no demo".
Now, I don't expect Customer Service to be kissing my arse and bending over backwards with a "Yes, sir, certainly, sir... absolutely, we'll get onto that right away sir!" attempt to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Obsequiousness... but I don't really care for flippant and unhelpful comments like that either, frankly. They do nothing to endear me further to the product -- even though it might well be absolutely 100% crackerjack and the hands-down best solution to my problem that money can buy!
No, siree. Instead, responses like that leave a bad taste in my mouth and the impression that Customer Support don't give a toss. Which then, in turn, makes me question what kind of tech support I'm likely to get in the event of a problem with installation or configuration, and so on.
Again, I might, in fact, get the best support team on the web. The guy who owns that software is, from all the contact I've had in the past, a genuine and decent bloke. (I can't imagine it was him who answered my ticket, but if it was, everything I say here still stands).
But if the Customer Support person -- the front-line contact person for your business -- is a tool, there's an extremely good chance that they're going to lose you my business. Forever.
And that I'm going to go out of my way to tell others to avoid your business too.
Am I alone on that account?
--------------------
It made me think of something... I have a friend who worked in hotels for years and years and years. He's been out of that game for a while now, but he still gets called up by his old buddies in the biz when he's in various places and offered a free night at XYZ hotel in return for some honest feedback on Operations.
He's asked to do all sorts of things: ask for extra this and that, make a fuss at the desk, call up room service at 2am, call up maintenance at 5am, and all this kind of stuff.
Then he writes up a report on how it was all handled.
Classic "mystery shopper" kind of stuff. But from someone who knows the biz inside and out.
Yeah, yeah, I know there's a fine line of trust to walk there. You need to trust your subordinates to do the job themselves otherwise you end up trying to do everything yourself because "if you want a job done properly, you've got to do it yourself".
Only workaholic, inferiority-complex-ridden morons who like running themselves into the ground believe that.
But you do have to ensure your staff are doing the job you've paid them to do in the way you want it done -- particularly if they have ANY sort of direct contact with your customers and clients!
-----------------------
The converse is also true, but sadly it's not followed up on as often, I'd venture to say.
Whenever I get someone who provides outstanding customer service, I almost always tell them AND ask for their supervisor's contact details so that I can forward on a message saying how impressed I was with the way that person handled my enquiry and/or sorted out my problem.
Sure, they're just doing their job. I'm with Mr Pink all the way on the tipping madness debate. But if someone does an exceptional job -- just in the course of doing their job -- they need to be credited and recognised for that.
It's too easy to just complain when someone provided pants customer service and not commend the good stuff as well.
One person I'll straight up say provides some of the best customer support I've encountered in the IM niche is Adrian Ling's assistant, Robert. He's superb. Always prompt, polite, knows what he's doing... a total gem. If only I had 5 of him working for me!
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Anyway, now I'm just kinda raving on... so I'll go to bed.
But if you have Support Staff -- virtual or inhouse -- how do you know that they're doing their job in such a way that your customers and prospects are telling others how good your service and support are -- as opposed to eroding all the long-term advantages to your business of hiring them in the first place?
Worth considering, I reckon.
TheNightOwl
I was going to post the following thoughts in that thread, but due to the title, I thought a lot of folks might not read what I'm about to say, which might be important; I don't know. You tell me.
It ain't some bolt out of the blue revelation or anything. And I'm sure it's been brought up 48 million times on this board before. But it might bear repeating. I dunno. Anyway...
* If you have a VA (virtual assistant), do you know what he or she is actually doing?
How much is s/he helping your business grow and generate happy customers (read: high likelihood of referrals) versus leaving customers or potential clients with a bad taste in their mouth?
Yes, s/he is helping your business grow because they're freeing up your time to do "higher order" tasks like shore up JVs and so on. Fine. So in that respect, they're helping your business grow. Agreed.
But how much damage are they doing at the same time?
How do you know?
I was thinking about this the other day in relation to my day job. Our receptionist is young and cute and full of energy and, well, a walking stereotype of the ditzy receptionist.
I've had cause to be in and around the reception area a fair bit lately and I'm horrified at some of the stuff that comes out of her mouth given that she is the front-line image for the business.
I've never seen or heard her be rude to a client, but she doesn't seem to consider that people waiting to see whoever it is that they're there to see might actually hear all about her private conversations and the other asides she makes to the other gals who work on that desk.
And she's not exactly new there so it makes me wonder whether the boss has heard any of her clunkers. Clunkers that I, at least, figure must leave clients questioning the professionalism of the place -- even if everything else is run perfectly. I wonder how many people wonder about why she hasn't been told to be less inappropriate and what, in turn, that says about the culture of the company as a whole.
But who knows, I might just be having a momentary attack of the conservative grumpy old *******s tonight.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into it.
Nothing a spot of fox-hunting, followed by a cognac and a cigar wouldn't assuage, I'm sure, old boy.
-----------
I asked about a particular website-building software tool recently via that company's Helpdesk. The answer I got was less than helpful.
I asked if there was a demo that I could take for a test-drive. I wanted to look at the Admin interface and see what could be done with the templates.
The response I got was "Nope, no demo".
Now, I don't expect Customer Service to be kissing my arse and bending over backwards with a "Yes, sir, certainly, sir... absolutely, we'll get onto that right away sir!" attempt to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Obsequiousness... but I don't really care for flippant and unhelpful comments like that either, frankly. They do nothing to endear me further to the product -- even though it might well be absolutely 100% crackerjack and the hands-down best solution to my problem that money can buy!
No, siree. Instead, responses like that leave a bad taste in my mouth and the impression that Customer Support don't give a toss. Which then, in turn, makes me question what kind of tech support I'm likely to get in the event of a problem with installation or configuration, and so on.
Again, I might, in fact, get the best support team on the web. The guy who owns that software is, from all the contact I've had in the past, a genuine and decent bloke. (I can't imagine it was him who answered my ticket, but if it was, everything I say here still stands).
But if the Customer Support person -- the front-line contact person for your business -- is a tool, there's an extremely good chance that they're going to lose you my business. Forever.
And that I'm going to go out of my way to tell others to avoid your business too.
Am I alone on that account?
--------------------
It made me think of something... I have a friend who worked in hotels for years and years and years. He's been out of that game for a while now, but he still gets called up by his old buddies in the biz when he's in various places and offered a free night at XYZ hotel in return for some honest feedback on Operations.
He's asked to do all sorts of things: ask for extra this and that, make a fuss at the desk, call up room service at 2am, call up maintenance at 5am, and all this kind of stuff.
Then he writes up a report on how it was all handled.
Classic "mystery shopper" kind of stuff. But from someone who knows the biz inside and out.
Yeah, yeah, I know there's a fine line of trust to walk there. You need to trust your subordinates to do the job themselves otherwise you end up trying to do everything yourself because "if you want a job done properly, you've got to do it yourself".
Only workaholic, inferiority-complex-ridden morons who like running themselves into the ground believe that.
But you do have to ensure your staff are doing the job you've paid them to do in the way you want it done -- particularly if they have ANY sort of direct contact with your customers and clients!
-----------------------
The converse is also true, but sadly it's not followed up on as often, I'd venture to say.
Whenever I get someone who provides outstanding customer service, I almost always tell them AND ask for their supervisor's contact details so that I can forward on a message saying how impressed I was with the way that person handled my enquiry and/or sorted out my problem.
Sure, they're just doing their job. I'm with Mr Pink all the way on the tipping madness debate. But if someone does an exceptional job -- just in the course of doing their job -- they need to be credited and recognised for that.
It's too easy to just complain when someone provided pants customer service and not commend the good stuff as well.
One person I'll straight up say provides some of the best customer support I've encountered in the IM niche is Adrian Ling's assistant, Robert. He's superb. Always prompt, polite, knows what he's doing... a total gem. If only I had 5 of him working for me!
-------------------------
Anyway, now I'm just kinda raving on... so I'll go to bed.
But if you have Support Staff -- virtual or inhouse -- how do you know that they're doing their job in such a way that your customers and prospects are telling others how good your service and support are -- as opposed to eroding all the long-term advantages to your business of hiring them in the first place?
Worth considering, I reckon.
TheNightOwl
You might not like what I say - but I believe it.
Build it, make money, then build some more
Some old school smarts would help - and here's to Rob Toth for his help. Bloody good stuff, even the freebies!
Tons of FREE Public Domain content you can use to make your own content, PLR, digital and POD products.
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