Remote Personal Assistant
Convivio Navideño: A Heartfelt Thank You
Following is a thank you letter the management at Prialto and BPO Innovations received from its employees in Guatemala.
To the management team at Prialto and BPO Innovations:
Last Saturday we celebrated our “Convivio Navideño” in our own Guatemalan way. The gathering has evolved through the years. It was originally a more meaningful time; a time to gather workmates for a moment and think about the true meaning of Christmas and enjoy a tamal and some fruit punch (a bit different from what you have in the States). Now, it has turned into loud parties, or just a BBQ, brews, and gift exchanges.
Our “Convivio Navideño” this year, however, was different. The party was still loud (and fun!), tamal and fruit punch were quite good. The difference is that Alexis* sent a message of the true meaning of Christmas - that it is a time for appreciation and gratitude.
I want to thank you, not only for the gift that you’ve given us but for remembering that there’s a person behind the phone, for making this call center unique from the others in this country. All of us have worked at call centers before, and yet this is the first time we don’t feel like a number, and that means a lot to us.
Have a very Merry Christmas!!
Eddie
*Alexis Rivas is the CEO of BPO Innovations in Guatemala
Growing a small consulting firm
Many small consulting companies struggle with building capacity and finding technical solutions that will serve their needs and make them more productive while keeping costs at a manageable level.
Member Profile
Cordoba Consulting is a two-person enterprise in the transportation industry. The company is steadily growing and occasionally contracts subconsultants for larger projects.
Background
Handling and managing administrative tasks take time and resources. Much of the daily billable work for small consulting companies revolves around client meetings, appointment scheduling, and project management. Even on an extended workday, very little time is left for tasks such as updating recurring reports, invoicing, booking travel, and dealing with technical issues. In addition, while consultants are either meeting with a client or working on a job, calls are inevitably left unanswered. The obvious solution would be to hire an administrative assistant and an IT consultant, but for most small companies, this solution is just not an option - it’s simply too expensive. So, Cordoba Consulting sought to find a cost-effective solution, which they found with Prialto.
Solution
Prialto developed a human resource and technology infrastructure that supported the company’s business. A remote personal assistant was assigned to handle administrative tasks such as answering inbound calls, coordinating meetings, and managing consultants’ calendars. In addition, a technology solution was put in place to seamlessly manage communication between clients and consultants. Prialto Collaboration Suite, an enterprise-class collaboration platform, was implemented. This service includes email (plus push email), contact information, calendar, and online file storage. Prialto also took on the management of the company’s domain registration and DNS.
Conclusion
With the Prialto solution, the staff at Cordoba Consulting are now able to focus on their core business. The company has effectively added an executive assistant and IT support at less than half the cost of hiring two additional employees. Gone are missed opportunities due to unanswered calls, so are the hours spent on administrative tasks. In its place is an affordable, efficient solution that provides the human touch lacking in an increasingly automated world, and a technology system and support that is scalable, robust and dependable.
The art of appointment scheduling: Even making a dental appointment can create a Wow! moment
Finding a dentist in a specific location that uses nitrous oxide and accepts a member’s insurance seemed like an ordinary request, which it was, until one finds out the amount of work that went into it.
A Prialto member put it this way: “I gave Eddie (a Prialto personal assistant) an easy first task that I thought he could over deliver on, just as I would a new employee, but he found a way to artfully over deliver!
What was so impressive with how Eddie executed the task? After he narrowed down the search to a dental office that met all three requirements (location, nitrous, insurance) based on reviews he found on Yelp and other review sites, he did not stop there; he did not just pass on the information to the member and called it a day. Instead, he went further by checking the member’s calendar and picked a date and time when the member would be free. He then called the doctor’s office to make the appointment. He was told that new patients could only be scheduled after certain information has been submitted. Eddie then asked the receptionist what they needed, called the member and wrote down the information, and confirmed with the date and time of the appointment with the member. Eddie proceeded to call the receptionist, gave her the requested information, and firmed up the appointment.
Pretty thorough, huh? Well, not for Eddie. After confirming the appointment, he also took it upon himself to research parking garages in the area, their rates, and the availability of metered parking. He sent this information to the member’s email and iPhone, along with directions (with a link to a map) to the clinic.
All this was done while the member was going through his day at work, which enabled him to focus on his business instead of spending an hour or so performing the task.
Wow moment? Our member thought so.
She saved me more time than I even realized!
How do you efficiently schedule 20 separate phone interviews? Have your remote personal assistant do it!
I had a list of about 20 individuals, all located in the East Coast, with schedules as hectic as mine. Contacting them and trying to coordinate a time to talk would have taken me 2-3 hours, which I did not have. So, I turned to Remelie, my personal assistant, to manage the process. I sent her a spreadsheet containing all the contact information, and as she had access to my calendar, she proceeded to contact each person on the list. Throughout that day and in the succeeding morning, I could see my calendar updating on my iPhone. The calls were scheduled and made seamlessly throughout the week - all without interruption to my existing schedule.
What made the execution of the task memorable was not that the calls were scheduled, but that my assistant took the initiative to research some of the incorrect phone numbers that I had given her without calling me. She knew I had a busy week, so instead of asking me, she found other ways to get the information. On one occasion, she tracked down one of the candidates by searching him on Google. She found his former employer, contacted them, told them who she was and the purpose of the call, and asked them to verify the phone number she had (I had transposed a couple of numbers). They told her which two numbers were off.
I only knew about what she had done when the candidate informed me of how determined Remelie was in attempting to get the correct phone number. He was impressed. Remelie never told me what she did, as she considers this kind of follow through part of what she does. Wow!
You can’t buy that kind of follow through today. Don’t outsource just to save money. Outsource to find the right talent and attitude when you can’t find it nearby. That’s what Prialto helps you do.
How to best work with your assistant
People are almost always thrilled by the prospect of having their own dedicated personal assistant. They often stumble, however, when working to determine exactly how they will use a new helping hand. They deliberate on what they will off-load and how best to work with someone remotely.
Our members have successfully handed off hundreds of unique tasks to their Prialto assistants, many of which I will discuss individually in upcoming posts. Regardless of the tasks that our members have sought to hand off, some simple practices have proven to be universally helpful in making their time manager/productivity assistant their go-to person. Following are some of the practices you can establish that have been useful to our members: