It's Virtually Done, LLC

Recently, a new client com­pli­mented me, “Thank you, Kristy. You’re the best. I so appre­ci­ate every­thing you do… and the way you do it.” Who doesn’t like to hear some­thing like that? Whereas I was delighted by so much praise early on, I was sur­prised as well. Why was my client so pleased?

I decided to do a lit­tle research online to uncover qual­i­ties of excel­lent vir­tual assis­tants (VAs). There’s a ton of infor­ma­tion on how to become a VA or how to con­tract with a VA, but I didn’t see too much about excel­lent char­ac­ter­is­tics beyond the obvi­ous. Let’s assume that every client wants some­one who is tech­ni­cally skilled, hon­est, detail-oriented, and per­son­able. Now let’s go beyond the basic, nec­es­sary qual­i­ties, dig a lit­tle deeper, and uncover what really pleases clients and makes them eager to pay their VA’s invoice out of grat­i­tude, respect, and mutual admi­ra­tion. (Like the way I feel when I write a check to my com­puter technician!)

Ten ways VAs can make their clients LOVE them:

1.   Care about your client’s com­pany as if it were your own. This isn’t always easy because you’re not an employee who is vested in the retire­ment plan. In fact, you’re an inde­pen­dent con­trac­tor who can be fired at a moment’s notice. How­ever car­ing for your client’s com­pany in sub­tle, but impor­tant ways builds trust, which is vital to the long term VA-Client relationship.

For exam­ple, let’s say that you com­pleted some work for a client, but she dropped the ball and will look bad if you don’t reach her so she’ll fin­ish the last step. Even though it is late in the evening, con­tact your client by any means possible.

2.   Take Ini­tia­tive. It’s easy to fall into the trap of being the “assis­tant” and just sit­ting back and wait­ing to be told what to do, espe­cially when you have other clients to help out, or your own work to do. But remind­ing your client that you are there to help, prompt­ing them for tasks that are com­ing due, and remind­ing them when you don’t hear back from them are all ways that you show your client that you “have their back.”

3.   Bring Ideas to the Table. Clients often have set ways of doing things, but you, as a VA with many clients, can bring alter­nate ideas for your client to con­sider (with­out breech­ing client con­fi­den­tial­i­ties). Stay on top of tech­no­log­i­cal advances, try free tri­als of inno­v­a­tive new sys­tems, and sug­gest them to your client as ways to improve the bot­tom line or stay ahead of the competition.

4.   Be Flex­i­ble. When I first started out as a VA, I had rigid stan­dards such as inflex­i­ble busi­ness hours. Although I still pre­fer to take Friday’s off, in today’s econ­omy and the real­i­ties of the 24/7 inter­net, work­ing the occa­sional late night or doing a week­end check-in becomes nec­es­sary. Clients really appre­ci­ate this flex­i­bil­ity. For me, the key is mutual respect with a client. If you’re work­ing with an ideal client, then being taken advan­tage of won’t be an issue.

5.  Own Mis­takes. Mis­takes do hap­pen, and we hate it when they do, but they are inevitable as hard as we try. Recently, a client and I were scram­bling to fin­ish an ebook with a com­ple­tion dead­line, and mean­while, I was head­ing out of town for a mini-vacation. I fin­ished the last edits and sent the file to my client and I was happy and care­free, that is, until I real­ized that I had sent the wrong file and couldn’t make it right from my remote loca­tion. Ugh. My fault. I owned it, apol­o­gized, and made it right my knock­ing some time off my bill. It was the right thing to do. For­tu­nately, I have a won­der­ful client who rec­og­nizes that errors hap­pen, under­stood, and appre­ci­ated the break on the invoice. Con­tinue read­ing →