I run a small AV hire business. We have 2 locations. One in the city & one regional. I do all the sales & bookings from the regional office. For example a customer rings me. I create an order in the cloud booking software & we have a part-time technician (Dan) that comes in to the city warehouse half Tue & Thu to prepare the orders. That system works OK but there's a bit of management overhead since the order is being handled by 2 people (Myself & Dan) so I spend a lot of time documenting everything. It's particularly problematic when we get last minute orders. For example if somebody rings on a Friday then I have to ring the warehouse manager (David) & check if he's at the warehouse or if he can drive over & pack the order. It's quite messy. We've been growing quite a bit lately & I'm getting overwhelmed handling all the bookings. I want to get some help but I can't decide on the best strategy.
OPTION 1: Hire a full-time VA in the Philippines.
Advantages:
-Affordable ($10ph)
-Being full-time they could respond promptly to all enquiries.
-Could do a lot of other work like social media etc.
-Easy to recruit.
Disadvantages:
-Little technical understanding of the work we do.
-Being located remotely there's a bit of communication overhead (as mentioned above)
-Can't take phone calls (about 40% of enquires are by phone) but could respond via text or email to phone messages.
OPTION 2: Hire On-Site Technician Half Day Tue-Sat to Handle Full Booking/Order Preparation Process
Advantages:
-Can talk direct to customers on the phone.
-Is technically qualified to answer customer questions
-No communication overhead as one person is taking the order & preparing it.
-Would pick up about $100 per week worth of last minute orders that we currently turn down.
-Makes that office more self-sufficient if I wanted to sell it off.
Disadvantages:
-More expensive ($40ph)
-Being part-time they couldn't respond to customers as quickly. For example if they don't work Mondays then a customer enquiry on Monday wouldn't be responded to till Tuesday.
-A lot of eggs in one basket. If the technician leaves then we lose order taking & order processing capacity. I could counter this by using 2 x different technicians but that brings back some of the communications overhead problem.
-I don't think our current tech wants to work 5 days per week. Getting a second tech for 3 days might be the only option & they are hard to find.
*The technician doesn't need to be on-site for customers to pick up order as we have a self-pickup system. They can prepare them in advance.
*I'd estimate about 20% of missed calls are not recoverable. E.g. customer doesn't leave a message or respond to text.
*Our sales conversion rate is about 80%
OPTION 1: Hire a full-time VA in the Philippines.
Advantages:
-Affordable ($10ph)
-Being full-time they could respond promptly to all enquiries.
-Could do a lot of other work like social media etc.
-Easy to recruit.
Disadvantages:
-Little technical understanding of the work we do.
-Being located remotely there's a bit of communication overhead (as mentioned above)
-Can't take phone calls (about 40% of enquires are by phone) but could respond via text or email to phone messages.
OPTION 2: Hire On-Site Technician Half Day Tue-Sat to Handle Full Booking/Order Preparation Process
Advantages:
-Can talk direct to customers on the phone.
-Is technically qualified to answer customer questions
-No communication overhead as one person is taking the order & preparing it.
-Would pick up about $100 per week worth of last minute orders that we currently turn down.
-Makes that office more self-sufficient if I wanted to sell it off.
Disadvantages:
-More expensive ($40ph)
-Being part-time they couldn't respond to customers as quickly. For example if they don't work Mondays then a customer enquiry on Monday wouldn't be responded to till Tuesday.
-A lot of eggs in one basket. If the technician leaves then we lose order taking & order processing capacity. I could counter this by using 2 x different technicians but that brings back some of the communications overhead problem.
-I don't think our current tech wants to work 5 days per week. Getting a second tech for 3 days might be the only option & they are hard to find.
*The technician doesn't need to be on-site for customers to pick up order as we have a self-pickup system. They can prepare them in advance.
*I'd estimate about 20% of missed calls are not recoverable. E.g. customer doesn't leave a message or respond to text.
*Our sales conversion rate is about 80%
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