Today is a new day. Whether it be the beginning of a New Year is really irrelevant because you can put into motion the 3 Cs on any day. All it takes is putting these 3 things into action.

No, I don’t profess to be a master teacher, by any means, on how you can achieve success this year. From looking at our own small virtual assistant business, I’ve found that for us, there are 3 Cs you can incorporate into your action plan to achieve success this year.

Communication

Communication is key to achieving success. Every day, you are working with staff, colleagues, competitors, clients or vendors. Talk to each other for heaven’s sake! Whether you use a smart phone, a telephone, email, Skype, in person or internet messenger, don’t leave room for misunderstanding which can lead to ruffled feathers, hurt feelings, or worse yet, cause you to do irreparable damage to the reputation of your business.

Don’t misunderstand. You should not have to be the only one to demonstrate good communication skills. This is a two-way street. The client also needs to communicate so we can provide them with the best service they want and expect. This, of course, would apply to the other groups I mentioned — your staff, colleagues or vendors need to speak up too.

Customer Service

I had a real dilemma as to whether to put this as the 1st C because it is so vital in order to achieve success this year, but I decided to put it second because it really only makes sense. One of the items you need in order to provide excellent customer service is good communication. You could say they actually go hand in hand.

Take the time to understand your clients’ needs. This key element pertains to whether you are in the virtual assistance industry, information technology (IT) industry or whatever other field you are in. You MUST provide superior customer service. You must provide a comprehensive customer service experience for your client!

Commitment

So based on the first 2 Cs I gave you for what you can do to achieve success this year, that brings in the element of commitment as our third C. You’ve got to be in this for the long haul. You are going to have up days and you are going to have down days. You need to be committed and work hard for that ultimate success you want to achieve. You can do it! As Margie Warrell, the best-selling author of Find Your Courage:12 Acts for Becoming Fearless in Work and in Life said, “Your failures don’t define you. Your response does.”

So repeat after me. The 3 Cs you can do to achieve success this year are communication, customer service and commitment. If you want, take each C one at a time and work on it so it becomes a habit. Then slowly incorporate the other 2 Cs so they become a way of life. Be diligent, consistent and look forward to the success you know you can achieve this year.

Pam Lokker is a master writer and proficient virtual assistant. Borlok Virtual Assistants is the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Clients are even more precious than gems. Client retention is critical for small- to medium-sized businesses.

As we remember, there are two groups of customers — internal and external. To service them, there are multiple types of Customer Support Solutions that a business can provide. Many businesses only tend to focus on one kind of service; they get really good at using one of the following types of customer service:

*  Phone Service

*  Email Service

*  Live Chat

Wouldn’t it be much better for you if you provided a comprehensive customer service experience for your clients? You’re probably scratching your head and saying “What do you mean by comprehensive customer service experience?”

A small business can utilize multiple methods to provide award-winning assistance to their customer or client. Here’s what I’m suggesting. Why not combine all three of the services I mentioned and cement them together with the use of a knowledge base and a forum? Let’s look deeper into the three main services:

Phone Service

We all are familiar with phone service; we use either a land line, cell phone, or VoIP all day long. The problem is though that many, many businesses have implemented menus for answering their phones and made it next to impossible for a client to get to an actual human. By the time the client does get to an actual representative, the client is usually irritated and seeing red. You are a virtual assistant. Don’t let that happen to your business!

Email Service

You may be familiar with companies that utilize email ticket service. I’m sure you’ve sent in an email to a business and been told your ticket number is xxx. These same companies have the ability to implement set responses that they can send out to the person at the click of a button. They can receive reporting, they can customize how their tickets look, assign tickets to users, and customize fields to fit them. This type of service is superior to phone in my estimation because you have a written record of all the conversations that you have had with a customer and can refer back to it at any given time. This allows you to provide a more advanced pleasurable experience for your customer.

Live Chat

Live Support Software (also known as Live Chat or Live Help) refers to handling incoming customer inquiries with the use of an instant messaging application. Similar to phone service where the customer has instant interaction with a customer representative, the benefits of live chat are numerous. Let me show you just a few:

*  There is little or no cost to implement it; it’s all done over the Internet.

*  Most live chat is fully customizable

*  You can monitor your clients visits with ease

*  Set hours can be established for the customer care representative(s) to be online or offline.

*  There are even more benefits not listed here.

As a virtual assistant, you want to be able to provide your clients with easy access to you should they have questions or want to order services. This is why I recommend implementing a comprehensive customer service experience for your client. To do this, you use a combination of phone, email, and live chat; BUT you also give your clients two additional types of service:

Knowledge Base

Think of a knowledge base as an online library that your client can go to get answers to common questions. You can add articles that you’ve written, put them in your knowledge base, and even categorize them.

Forum

In addition, you can set up your own forum. A forum is different from a live chat in that the forum is discussion threads that do not show in real time. To see new posts, the user will need to refresh their internet browser.

With those five methods, you can give your clients the very best customer service experience. Don’t kid yourself – providing first-class customer service is vital to the success of your business. I know of at least one company out there that will host four out of the five methods into a hosting solution with absolutely no cost. That’s right; I said no cost.

Comm100 is an open source company that provides services to large Fortune 500 companies. If they can provide a comprehensive customer service experience, then you can do the same for your clients. Why not look into it right now while you’re thinking about it. You won’t regret it.