By Tina Hilton of Clerical Advantage
Since my series “I want a virtual assistant…now what?” went into some details of working with a virtual assistant, I thought it might be helpful to share some information on some of the ‘tools of the trade’ that a virtual assistant may use in their business. This list is no where near complete, as I’ve just listed the ones that I’ve been made aware of. If you know of some that I haven’t listed, feel free to share the information in the comment section.
Phone: Many virtual assistants rely heavily on telephone communication. Some of the telephony type services available are:
Fax: In lieu of a tradition fax machine the following can be used: *note: Onebox and RingCentral also offer fax services*
Time Tracking and Billing: It is crucial for a virtual assistant to be able to track time spent on individual clients and client tasks as well as invoice for those hours. Here are some of the time tracking and billing choices available.
Money Transfer/Wiring: You’ve billed, now it’s time to get paid. You can go the traditional pay by check route or you can try one of these.
File Sharing/Collaboration: Having a central location or ‘online office space’ is important for the sharing and collaborating between client and virtual assistant.
Online Calendaring: Many of the collaboration sites listed above also have calendaring features.
Marketing: Whether you’re doing your own marketing or it’s one of your client assignments, these may be of help.
Remote Access: Being able to access client e-mail, databases and other programs resident on their computers can be a big part of a virtual assistant’s services. To accomplish this, remote access is key.
Freelance sites: Looking for more clients? You can try one of the freelance sites listed below.
As I said, this list is just a jumping off point, as I’m positive there are many, many more tools out there that work well for virtual assistants. Feel free to add to the list, and if we get a huge response, I’ll republish with all of your links added as well.
Categories: Virtual Assistant
3 Comments
E Fax must be where hell is!
I have never had such poor service and lousy communication as with E Fax customer service (Tech support). I kept getting spam faxes from the same 4 senders. I reported them using E Fax’s on-line spam reporting form. To NO AVAIL. They just kept on coming.
I called support to ask for help. First of all it’s really hard to understand what they are saying - even though they have English names like Alice and Marvin, they are clearly Indian-like accents. They spoke in circles not wanting to do anything themselves but wanting me to do any reporting that was to be done. Finally they would only send me exactly the same form by email that I had filled out many times on line. But, I dutifully filled out the form - once for each spam (Filling out once to include all the spams wasn’t possible).
And yet the spams come. It takes too much time to open each emailed fax only to find a spam that they don’t care to stop. I think they figure if they frustrate you enough you won’t bother them and just live with it. NOT! I cancelled my account and will never use E Fax again. And please tell everyone you know not to use them unless they really like hell!
Oh, and by the way, the form they sent to report how good the service was on my incident - wouldn’t “send”!!!
Thanks for another great post, Tina! I love trying out new tools and can’t wait to get at the ones you listed.
=>Donna Caissie, Virtual Assistant
ExtraOrdinary Assistance
www.extra-assist.com
www.dcaissie.wordpress.com
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