We’ve all heard it: “It’s essential for any modern business to have a healthy presence on social media.” Today’s consumers assume that support will be available around the clock. They think that a Twitter account or Facebook page is a legitimate resource from which to seek out help with all kinds of service issues. However, maintaining this level of availability can be difficult for smaller businesses and “solopreneurs.” Could hire a virtual assistant or VA be the answer?
Virtual Assistant Advantages
A virtual assistant can be of enormous benefit to many aspects of a business, including the following reasons.
- The cost of hiring a Virtual Assistant is much less than with a regular employee.
- Hiring is flexible and can be scaled to meet the amount of work you need to get done.
- Virtual Assistants can be located anywhere around the world and can be available 24/7 to meet your customer and client needs.
These advantages make a VA an ideal solution for fulfilling customer service duties in today’s social media-dominated online world. This allows a business to have constant availability at a reasonable cost. However, there’s an important point to bear in mind.
Monitor Carefully and Retain Control
Social media plays an essential role in building your company’s reputation. It’s therefore vital that you specify precisely how a VA is allowed to interact with customers and clients, as mistakes can be highly damaging. It’s a good idea to supply a set of scripts laying out responses to common questions. Also, instructions on which type of issue should be acknowledged before it’s passed on to a full-time, in-house team member/employee to handle.
These scripts can be as precise or flexible as you see fit. Still, the critical point is that the VA should have the information necessary to handle routine interaction. He or she should know which circumstances require a more expert and detailed response. It would help if you also had a supervisor regularly check over your VA’s messages to ensure consistent quality.
Given the right amount of guidance, a virtual assistant can be an extremely effective halfway-house solution to the 24/7 demands of social media. This allows you to deliver the availability your customers expect without the costs and management issues of taking on extra full-time staff.
Could your business improve customer service relations by hiring a VA? Heck, give it a shot!