As we remember, there are two groups of customers — internal and external. To service them, there are multiple types of service 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 landline, 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.

You’re probably thinking “what is search engine optimization?” Here’s the official answer according to Wikipedia: “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a web site or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.” Say what!

Here is my definition of what these words mean: maximize your search engine ranking. That’s it. That wasn’t hard, was it? Let’s take it out a little further. You want to have your blog site or website appear first when someone searches for you. It doesn’t have to be just Google; it can be Bing, Yahoo!, Ask, etc. You want to become so popular that your site(s) appear at the head of the list.

Now there are different ways that you can maximize your search engine ranking, but one of the ones that I would recommend for virtual assistants is by writing. There are many types of writing that you can do to increase your visibility. Pick one type or several; I’ll leave that to you. Let’s take a look at some areas that you can write while bringing new clients to your sites.

Articles

Articles are an excellent area to focus on. You don’t have to be an accomplished writer. Just write what you consider yourself to be an expert in. Then take those articles and submit them to article distribution sites that will send out your content to hungry publishers and content site owners.

Blogs

Here is where you can write content in your specific niche. Before you know it, readers will begin to recognize you as someone they can refer to if they have questions they need answers to. Your blog does not have to be some big, elaborate blog site, and you don’t need to know programming in order to have a blog. There are several free ones out there like Blogger or WordPress that will do just fine. Once you get going with your posts, you can become a member of blog directories.

Forums

Do you feel you have important information that you feel you could share? Do you like to take part in discussions? Then joining forums are an excellent way for you to do this. If you’re a virtual assistant like I am, you have a wide arena of topics that you can contribute worthwhile information; I can even point people to articles that I’ve written on my website or blog site. Hmmm…traffic - yummy delicious. I’m sure I see my ratings go up.

Press Releases

Do you have a newsworthy event happening at your virtual assistant business? Or perhaps you’ve reached a major milestone. Write about it and submit it to press release directories and help to increase your search engine visibility and ranking. Not only can you reach people globally, but you’ll be doing it through SEO.

Social Networking

Social media networking allows you to interact or socialize with lots of other people who share the same interests and activities as you. Consider being a member of a social network as being part of a close-knit community that you can share information with.

There are many places out there that allow you to socialize comfortably while maximizing your ranking on the Internet. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace are just a few of the more popular ones.

I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg for ways that you can write to increase your visibility. As a virtual assistant, you need to seize the opportunity to become well-known in the business and become more visible on the Internet. While you’re looking into the ways that I’ve mentioned in this article, keep your eyes open for other effective methods that you can increase the traffic to your sites, as well as maximize your search engine ranking. Good luck; I know you can do it.

Just yesterday, I was writing a document for a client. I researched on the Internet and found the perfect chart to illustrate what I was explaining. The chart had been included in a PDF file, which I found I wasn’t able to copy just the chart and paste it into my document. Geez, what could I possibly do to make a ho hum document sing?

I tried all the traditional methods like ‘alt+prtscr’ and ’select all’ and was totally dissatisfied with either method. Then it dawned on me — I could use Jing to make a document sing!

So what is Jing, and what are its capabilities?

Overview

According to Wikipedia, you can use Jing as a software application to take a picture or video of your own computer’s screen and then upload it to the Web, FTP, computer, or clipboard.

So let’s look at this versatile application a little closer. What are some of its capabilities that make a document sing?

Capabilities

Screencast

One of the most frequent needs I have from Jing is to include a snapshot of a screenshot that might demonstrate how to log into a system or perform a process. Especially when answering a customer inquiry in a ticket system where your responses were all in text format, it was impossible to include a screenshot — until now that is. Jing not only allows you to copy the screenshot, it allows you to highlight sections, use an arrow to point, and put a text note for explanation. Let’s see if I can demonstrate this for you.

Let’s say I want to explain to someone how to sign into Gmail. Rather than explaining in lots of words, I can give a short step-by-step guide, capture the image, and then provide a link for them to click on to see the actual screenshot.

Here’s an example:

To Log Into Gmail:

* Click this link: http://tinyurl.com/c84gd7
* Type in your Username
* Type in your Password
* Click on the button that says “Sign in”

To see the actual screenshot, just click on the link below:

http://screencast.com/t/MTIxNDY3ZWU

Copy

Now say a virtual assistant had a document that they wanted to really make sing and wanted to include an image. It couldn’t be easier! Just capture your image of either the whole window or a part of a window, click copy, and then click paste. Shazam! Check out my copy below:

A virtual assistant needs to keep tools in their tool chest that they can pull out at a moment’s time in order to make their client’s documents look award-winning. Now it is possible for a virtual assistant to use Jing to make a document sing. Why not try it out today!

I’m going to start off by using the phoenix as an example to illustrate the steps you can take to learn new information daily.

Read New Material

Now, I know we’re all strapped for time. So what is the best way to learn quickly? My technique is to rely on the information-loaded internet. I can do a search on a term (like Phoenix) and then check out my old favorite, Wikipedia.

As I was looking into the phoenix, this is what my online friend gave me: Phoenix (mythology). So what did I learn within this article? Let’s take some short things that I learned and relate them to our post.

What is the phoenix?

The phoenix is a mythological bird (no, you won’t find this bird in your backyard) that you might often see referred to as a firebird. This gorgeous bird was prevalent in Persian mythology, Phoenician mythology, Chinese mythology, Egyptian mythology, and last but not least, Greek mythology.

History

It’s been stated that the phoenix could live from 500-1,000 years. At the end of the bird’s cycle, he would build a nest of twigs and then light the nest up (Hmmm, I wonder if he used matches?) with the phoenix being in the center of the nest. Obviously, the nest and the phoenix are reduced to ashes; however, a brand new young phoenix (or phoenix egg - there’s variations that I found) will be like its older predecessor again living 500-1,000 years.

Characteristics

The phoenix is said to have been a gorgeous bird with brilliant colors. While the different mythology legends couldn’t quite agree on the actual color of the firebird, the tail is said to be gold and scarlet (or a purple, blue, or green). Now you have to understand that this bird was no small fry; it was reported to be approximately the size of an eagle.

Take Notes

As you can see, I could get totally immersed into the subject of the phoenix. Gee, you don’t suppose it’s because I live in Phoenix, Arizona, do you? Anyway, you too are likely to get involved in the subject you are reading on — whether it be an eBook, magazine, book, newspaper — and I’m sure you will want to save some of that valuable information. So what do you do? Take notes, either on paper or electronically, and you’ll have something to refer back to.

Relate the Information

Taking my example again of the phoenix, try and relate the information to some other information you might be interested in. In my case I was interested to learn that there were two great men that wrote on the phoenix (Phoenix (mythology))

• The Roman poet Ovid wrote about the phoenix.
• French author Voltaire described the phoenix.

So one way to relate the information might be to tuck the knowledge that a Roman poet, as well as a French author, wrote about this magnificent bird. Another way to relate the information might be to relate it to present-day life or to your own daily life.

Apply the Information

The phoenix is often associated with resurrection, healing, and peace. If you are a new virtual assistant, you can rest in the knowledge that you can succeed, you can get help when you need it from social networking, and you can become at peace within yourself, even if you have recently lost a full-time job, are going through a divorce, or some other disaster in your life.

While I probably made this article a little longer than I should have, I wanted to share my love of the phoenix while sharing some helpful hints that you can apply as you learn new information daily. Take care to always look on the future with optimism and excitement as you look for opportunities to learn new information. Then make sure you take steps to remember some of the information you might have gained by taking notes, relating it to other information, and applying it to your present situation. A virtual assistant can and should learn new information daily.

One of most critical strategies to increase your article marketing for your own business, as well as your clients’ businesses is to expand your search engine visibility. Through trial and error, I have found the following techniques to be very beneficial.

Write articles

It’s not hard to write articles. You don’t have to be a certified writer or publisher. As long as you follow good down-to-earth grammar, punctuation, and spelling guidelines, you CAN write your own articles and not have to pay someone else to write them for you.

Have Your Articles Distributed Far and Wide

Choose a good content distribution service where you can submit your articles and let them do all the leg work for you in getting your articles out to the hungry publishers and content site owners. Once such site that I use is Content Crooner. They have over 2,000 sites that they distribute articles to.

Socialize

The advantages of belonging to social networking sites are multiple. Using social media can increase your visibility in search engines. Setting up profiles, commenting, adding friends - this can all contribute to raising your status as an expert in the search engines. By adding links to your comments and profile pages, you will eventually begin to see increased traffic to your website or blog. The increased traffic will, in turn, raise your page rank scores.

Contribute

Contribute what, you might ask. Contribute by commenting on other people’s blogs, commenting in forums, sharing articles on your website, and making helpful comments on other articles you read, if the site owner allows comments. By making positive, helpful comments, you are going to be recognized as an expert in your particular niche.  By doing so, people are going to want to learn more about you. They’re going to search you out in Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and other search engines.

Blog

You don’t have to have a blog that a developer creates for you that costs you a lot of money. You can create your own blog on websites such as wordpress.com or blogspot.com. When writing on your blog, you are using a journalistic mind frame - write from the heart while utilizing research material and/or personal experience to keep your reader’s interest up.

Promote

Here’s where a quality content distribution service like Content Crooner comes into play. You will want to take advantage of special features that the service might offer. For example, perhaps you can take advantage of special sharing options that a service might have or special partnerships in order to obtain prominent position on one or several top article marketing directories.

A virtual assistant needs to do multiple article marketing strategies in order to increase search engine visibility — not only for in order to become successful for your own company, but also for your clients. Now is the time to learn the techniques I’ve mentioned above and increase your value and your potential for success. Don’t wait; do it now!

About the author:

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

Stop! Click Here! to read more about Content Crooner.

By now, you’re reading this post because you are ready to take the giant leap and begin writing your own articles. One of the most critical aspects of writing a good article is to have a good resource box. Before we get into how to write a super resource box, however, we need to spend a few moments learning just what a resource box is and why it is so important to write one.

Another acronym for a resource box is an About the Author box. This is where you include a short bio about you, the author. You have two opportunities to make your resource box shine.

There are two types of resource boxes:

The first type of resource box is your text version. No fancy formatting here — just straight text. You won’t have an opportunity in your text version to use extra frills of formatting like bold text, italics, underlining, etc.

The other type of resource box is the HTML version.

Since some article directories won’t allow HTML in the ATA box, you will want to write your plain text ATA first and then become familiar with your individual article directory site to see if they will allow HTML in your resource box. Each publisher that you submit your article to will have their own requirements as to which version they allow.

By far the one that I like to use the most if the publisher or site owner will allow it is the HTML version. Why? This is where you can hyperlink to anchor text or descriptive text that is hyperlinked. Just make sure, however, that the anchor text you use are your most powerful keywords.

Learn how to create an HTML Resource box

The first thing you want to make sure you do in order to write a super resource box is to include contact information so people can get a hold of you. This will almost always include your website address and sometimes even include a phone number, although I would not recommend the phone number, unless of course, you don’t mind getting spammed.

Now the next thing you want to do to ensure that you have an award-winning resource box is to have your sales pitch. Whether you are selling your services or your products, write about why your service or product fulfills a need for your client. What is it that makes it unique? Spell it out.

Lastly, you want to write in your call to action. What do you want your reader to do? Do you want them to buy from you? Maybe you want them to visit your website? Be clear and be innovative about how you tell them to “click here” or “go here”. See what I mean?

So, let’s just do a quick summary of what we have learned thus far. A resource box (also known as the About the Author box) is a critical part of a good article. The two versions that we have discussed are the text version (most all publishers will allow this type) and the HTML version. There are four essential parts to a resource box that include a quick bio of you or your company, your website address, your sales pitch, and your call to action. Your goal should be to include these elements in your resource box so that you are assured of having a resource box that is super!

A resource box will either improve your rankings or kill them. Taking a closer look into what a resource box is reveals the different types of resource boxes used, as well as what it takes to write a super resource box. Writing a super resource box will encourage people to flock to your site. Now is the time to get started!

A virtual assistant is frequently asked to write or rewrite all kinds of material - anything from a letter on up to a book. Using the right tools can ensure that your material is content rich; one of those tools is a thesaurus. Learn firsthand what a thesaurus is and what it’s used for.

If you are a virtual assistant, undoubtedly you will eventually have a client that wishes you to rewrite something he or she may have penned or typed. It’s not always an easy task to find just the right words to capture the essence of what is being said in an interesting and accurate manner. Now is the time to make your articles rich in content by using a thesaurus.

What is it you might ask? A thesaurus is just the tool you need; it’s a book that has a classified
list of synonyms. You remember what a synonym is from your days in English class at school, right? According to the Encarta English Dictionary (provided in Microsoft Word 2007), a synonym is a word that means the same, or almost the same, as another word in the same language, either in all of its uses or in a specific context. Examples of synonyms in this sense are “environment” and “surroundings” and the verbs “tear” and “rip.”

So why is a thesaurus useful in making your content rich when you write or rewrite articles? For one thing, if you replace words with synonyms, your content might just grab and keep the reader’s interest that much longer. You’ve all heard that you only have thirty seconds to stimulate a reader’s natural curiosity so they dive deeper into your article.

What are some good thesaurus’s out there that I can use online? I will discuss three here. Don’t take my word as gospel, however; do a search in your favorite search engine under “thesaurus.” I want you to have the freedom to make up your own mind as to which one will work the best for you.

Unless I’m working on a laptop, the very first thesaurus that I use all the time is WordWeb. WordWeb is a free English thesaurus and dictionary software download for Windows. Why do I like it? Just check out some of the things it can help you with:

* Definitions and synonyms
* Proper nouns
* Related words
* Pronunciations
* 150 000 root words
* 120 000 synonym sets
* Looks up words in almost any program

What makes Word Web so useful is that you have the ability to use a combination of the Ctrl + Alt + the W keys on your computer keyboard to have the program open on your desktop. This saves immeasurable time and is even faster than the next program I am going to talk about.

Remember I mentioned that I work on a laptop? One of the disadvantages of doing so is that a laptop will not have as much memory as a desktop so I do not tend to download a lot of software. What I have discovered is that Microsoft Office Word 2007 has a built-in thesaurus. How do you kick it into gear? To give you a simple explanation, say I want to change the word gear in my previous sentence to something else. I would right click on the word gear and scroll down to Look Up, left click with your mouse on the words Look Up and voilà! It will automatically default to All Reference Books, but that is easy to change. Just click on the down arrow next to All Reference Books and change it to Thesaurus: English (You can also choose French or Spanish).

A virtual assistant has to be thrifty in their use of time, as well as being the best of the best. Oftentimes, there will be resources available to us that we don’t even know that can save us an immense amount of work. One of those resources is a good thesaurus. A good thesaurus can not only save us time, it can provide us with synonyms that will help us write and rewrite articles, blogs, press releases, eBooks, etc., that are award-winning. Not only that, a thesaurus can help us make our material rich in content.

I’m trying to work, I really am; but my feline child has her own challenges that she demands I take care of immediately.

How do you resist your feline child that lays so blissfully on your desktop helping you work. She rolls back and looks up at you with those pretty little ears, cute face, and reaching paws. No, no, little one - this virtual assistant must get to work. I have clients waiting.

There that paw goes again, reaching for the pen or chasing the cursor on my monitor. Stop that. Leave that alone. Stop being so challenging!

I sigh and return to my work, only to have her grabbing something else on my desk - a paperclip, the phone cord, or reaching into the well where my monitor sits and grabbing the mouse cord.

My challenges today, it seems, are to stop this child from being such a challenge. That’s a challenge in itself.

I evict this challenging feline delinquent to the floor and implore her to go play somewhere else. Oh my gosh, what was that crash. Gotta run! My feline sphinx’s (my pet name for her) challenges have gotten her into more trouble than she can handle.

I pick her up, scolding her the whole time, and place her back on my desk. She sighs and curls up into a peaceful little ball, no doubt dreaming about all the new and exciting challenges that my furry four-legged feline child can get into. What am I to do? I give up and let her continue with her dreams. Maybe now I’ll get some work done.

It was 8:00 o’clock in the morning as I sat down to transcribe. It was a blistery, cold morning in Phoenix, Arizona (Hah! - More like 116 outside as I write this). With my cup of hot steaming coffee on my one side of my desk and my faithful live, white, feline desk ornament on my other, I prepared for the day.

Now, you have to understand that I was new at this game of transcribing; I’d only been doing it for a short time. My topic was Internet marketing, and it was very interesting. It was all about Pay per Click, and AdWords, and various other Internet-related things; and it was an interview between an interviewer and an Internet Guru.

This is going to be a piece of cake, right? I typed all about interesting Internet gurus, Napoleon Hill, and interesting subjects like Google AdWords, Overture, Google Pay Per Click, e-Books, ClickBank, Yahoo! Search, and a whole lot more. Now, be aware that I was fairly new at transcribing for clients regarding the Internet; so I had to do a lot of research. When I started out, I started with a well-known search engine; but you could choose Google, Yahoo, Ask, or a host of others that are out there. What I didn’t know is that even if you use a reputable search engine, it takes an astute transcriptionist to decipher what search results you should use.

For example, suppose you questioned the spelling of an author’s name. Correctly, you go to the Internet to Google, or Yahoo!, MSN, or whatever you use, and you type in the author’s last name Chialdiani because you were looking up Robert Cialdini because he wrote a well-known book that your client had included on the audio that your client provided you. Aha! You found as the first hit a result that one of the major online bookstores had posted. Now, I chose one that has a huge following on the Internet; they should know the correct spelling, right? Not so fast, Charlie or Jenny, or whoever you are. Take care to take it one step further.

You must actually take it one step further and GO to that bookstore online and find the book. How is the author’s name spelled? Oh, oh. It’s Cialdini. Folks, I’ve got to tell you. Internet clients can be absolutely ruthless when providing feedback to Elance, iFreelance, or Guru, or other freelance sites when a transcriptionist does not get spelling right. Do not be lackadaisical here; this is critical!

Let’s look at another example. Say you want to look up the spelling for the group of people that come from the Philippines. How would you spell Filipino? Be careful here. This could be a trick question. Okay, again, we start out on Google, Web Crawler, Ask, or any other search engine you might use. We type in Philippino because we think that because they are from the Philippines, they are probably called Philippinos, right? Hold on. Who are you going to use as a resource to verify that spelling? In many instances you have more than one spelling for a word, and clients can be very, very temperamental if you choose the wrong spelling. My recommendation is to use reputable references that are well-known and have been around for years.

So what have we learned thus far? Be very choosy when using resources to determine spelling of words. Make sure that sites you use are reputable resources. Your clients do not want to see errors when they receive their transcription. Go the extra mile, be diligent, and be accurate. If you have to use multiple resources to get a consensus, that’s great. That is what you clients want. If you do that, you will go far in establishing a sound transcription business that clients will come to you for services over and over again.

You know what? Buyers are not always right. What?! I can’t believe you’re saying this. Well, it’s true. Buyers have a tendency to believe that their virtual assistant is just sitting on his or her laurels with baited breath waiting for that one call indicating that something has to be done right now.

You see, buyers tend to forget that virtual assistants have more than one client to take care of. Depending on the client, they have needs that need to be prioritized too.

So Buyer, beware! You may not get your project done right away. Give your virtual assistant some advance notice or be prepared for a letdown. Work with them by giving clear details about your project.

You mean the world to us; however, we are not afraid to tell you no, I can’t do that right now. I can have it for you in 2-3 days, though. Will that work all right?

Virtual assistants get hungry too, and one client just doesn’t put food on the table.