Hire a Virtual Assistant (VA). A VA can be a game-changer, especially when you're not ready for a full-time in-house admin. We’ve been using a VA through Upwork for three years, and she handles inbound calls, schedules quotes, and takes down all the job details. This allows us to provide immediate assistance, keeping potential clients engaged and turning warm leads into HOT leads because everything is handled on the spot.
Here’s how it works:
Plus, VAs can do more than just answer calls—they can handle customer emails, follow-ups, and other admin tasks, making them a super cost-effective solution as you scale. Ours is now in a full-time role and she tracks our company KPIs, is in charge of billing and collections, as well as most customer service functions.
Super helpful.
is she paid per call handled or what does the comp setup look like?
She's paid through upwork and it's hourly. However, she's in the Phillipines so it's a much lower per hour cost than what we would get here in the US. Right now I'm paying $10/hour but keep in mind we may be a much larger operation than what you have. We have four field crews, 1 sales person, and two admins. One is state-side and one is overseas.
There are also services that specialize in this type of data entry for Jobber that do charge per call. Before we were with Jobber, we had utilized one of these services first and they were OK, but it was different. It was more a process of, "we'll get the request information input and then someone has to followup with them". I'd recommend going for a VA because it frees up much of your time, and empowers your sales person to do what they do best and you focus on what you do best instead of all the back and forth work. Overall, I strongly believe that it will help you deliver a better customer experience.
