How to Reduce the Cost of Hiring New Employees

As the demand for your services or products grows, your business needs to keep up by recruiting more employees. 

However, the process can become costly as you spend time and resources gathering resumes, selecting the best candidates, and training them in assuming their roles. 

In order to get the most from hiring new employees, it’s important to optimize the costs of managing the entire process, from recruitment all the way to deployment. 

Here’s how:

One obvious way to cut down on recruitment expenses is to choose more promising candidates. For this, it’s important to prepare criteria specifying the qualities you need in a new recruit.

If you are looking for a web designer for your web development project, it pays to know whether there are candidates who have had actual experience creating mockups and layouts for companies in the same industry.

This way, you can divert your attention towards the most promising applicants who won’t take long to learn the ropes.   

 

Interviewing applicants is a crucial part of the recruitment process. It is where you determine competencies and gauge work attitudes that are not explicitly stated on a candidate’s resume or CV.

With that being said, you should be able to refine your list of interview questions and use that to seek out recruits who may require less time for onboarding or training.

Instead of focusing on an applicant’s strengths and weaknesses, you might as well learn how he or she will respond to difficult scenarios (for instance, an angry and impatient client). These should tell you a lot more about a person’s potential to become an asset within your organization. 

 

Hiring new employees isn’t something that only the recruitment team can handle on their own. When it comes to publishing hiring ads and seeking out quality talents, it should take the needs of each department into account and use these as a reference for hiring the right people.

If your marketing team needs help with social media management, it’s best to publish hiring notices that highlight such a competency.

By working closely with other teams within the organization, your recruitment team can run ads that attract the right applicants.

 

In case you need help with running a recruitment campaign, you can always reach out to an agency that’s capable of running recruitment ads, preparing training materials, and interviewing potential hires. This comes with a cost, but you get to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and ROI of your recruitment activities. 

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to be a major public health crisis, outsourcing your recruitment processes gives you more time to seek out growth opportunities while ensuring that your business is supplied by top-notch talents.  

 

If you need help with recruitment process outsourcing, OneVirtual Global Business Solutions has you covered. Schedule a consultation to get started. 

OVS Holiday Picks: 5 Awesome (and Safe) Christmas Party Ideas

The Holidays wouldn’t be complete without partying. With the ensuing pandemic, however, safety remains a number one priority as gatherings for Christmas are discouraged this year.  

Still, we can’t let Covid-19 dampen the Holiday Spirit. Even with strict social distancing and stay-at-home rules in place, organizing fun Christmas parties is possible. Here are a few ideas to make this festive occasion just as memorable as previous years:

If you are hosting a Christmas get-together via Zoom, you can organize a contest that rewards participants with the best-decorated backgrounds. Before sending out the link, have them to spice up their home environment with lights and festive colors. They can also dress up to complete their desired theme. 

 

The Holidays are the perfect time to watch seasonal favorites, from Home Alone to Tim Burton’s a Nightmare Before Christmas. If these titles are a little too cliche for everyone’s taste, then consider Christmas-themed films like Die Hard or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Be sure to tell everyone to prepare their own Holiday drinks and munchies. 

The rules don’t say you can hold a Christmas Party in the evening, so try having it during lunchtime where you can distribute packed meals. Get creative by using custom lunch boxes that contain freebies and souvenirs. You can add a twist to it by making it a themed luncheon. For instance, you can tell everyone to arrive in Holiday-themed pajamas or wear unique hats.

 

People may have taken advantage of the lockdown period to find new hobbies. With that being said, consider holding a virtual talent show where participants can showcase the abilities they already have or were able to develop while they were working at home. You can send them discount vouchers or gift baskets as prizes. 

 

You can’t have a Christmas Party without games that reward you with awesome prizes. While playing Christmas-themed party games seems less fun online, you can still make this an exciting time for everyone through a virtual game of bingo. Using apps like Bingo Maker, you can easily set up a bingo game via Zoom or Skype to add some excitement to your Christmas Party.

What other fun and risk-free ideas for a Christmas Party do you have in mind? Feel free to share them with us so we can all have a great time! 

How to Retain Ecommerce Customers

Satisfying your ecommerce customers isn’t enough. Your business should also focus on retaining them for the long run. 

Customer retention can be a complicated process, but getting the most value from your customer engagements can bring opportunities to your online store and your audience. 

And since it’s the Holiday Season, you might as well nurture first-time visitors this month into loyal customers in 2021. Here’s how to do it: 

 

Cross-selling is the practice of adding more products to a customer’s purchase. It involves convincing them to (for example) add more accessories to a dress they purchased at your shop. This comes as an add-on deal on top of a discount. 

Upselling, on the other hand, is the practice of convincing a customer that they should upgrade to a more expensive but higher quality item. Both these options can help satisfy customers and give added value to every transaction. 

 

A loyalty program serves both as an incentive and reward that encourages customer loyalty. For this, include such rewards as a free gift certificate, discounts on select items, and a free entry to a raffle or contest. 

 

A personalized customer experience can help make a customer feel special, thereby lengthening the amount of time your ecommerce store engages with your audience.

Personalizing customer experience includes engaging them through social media and using individual customer analytics so you can tailor your messages to their needs. For this, you can send out personalized emails through tools like MailChimp. 

 

Providing exceptional service remains the most important part of ensuring customer retention. After all, your brand is your best asset.

With that being said, always cater to the needs and concerns of your ecommerce’s customers whenever possible. You wouldn’t want them to lose faith in your brand and stop making any more purchases. 

 

Improving customer satisfaction and retention is a lot to manage. Luckily, you can always hire a team of virtual assistants who can manage your customer interactions, provide valuable experiences to your audience, and enhance your sales numbers.  

Get started with OneVirtual Global Business Solutions. Schedule a consultation today by clicking here!

OVS Holiday Picks: Top 5 Christmas Gift Ideas Under P700

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the spirit of giving remains alive this Holiday Season. After all, we all need a reason to smile and the best way to do that is through the age-old tradition of gift-giving.  

With only a few more days before Christmas, you might as well beat the crowds and shop for the perfect gift this early on. Apart from that, you also need to know what to give at a cost that fits your pocket. 

Luckily, OVS has got you covered. Here’s a list of the top five Christmas gift ideas at P700 or less!

 

If you know someone who is an avid coffee lover, then this coffee brewing kit from BrewsCo would be the ideal gift. It comes with a 350mL French press and 200g of Mount Apo Arabica grounds. The kit costs P699 plus the shipping fee — unless of course, you have an extra free shipping voucher lying around. All in all, it’s still a great deal if it means satisfying someone else’s daily caffeine fix.

 

Stationery and calligraphy enthusiasts will definitely appreciate it if you give them fountain pens this Christmas. While these luxury writing tools can cost as much as P20,000, you can look for entry-level fountain pens that cost less than P500. Consider the Platinum Prefounte fountain pen which retails for P495 at Scribe. With its transparent resin body and stainless steel nib, this pen is sure to trigger an obsession in the person receiving it!

 

While 2020 is going to be the year of canceled plans, we can only hope to fulfill these plans in 2021. People deserve a better year and it’s for this reason that giving out planners to your well-organized friends won’t go out of style. Let them say goodbye to 2020 by giving them a 2021 Daily Interact Certified Positive Planner, complete with motivational messages for a year filled with possibilities. 

 

For the plantitos and plantitas who have been growing their collections this year, help them nurture their newfound hobby by gifting them with rare succulents and cacti. You can easily find plant sellers anywhere, but if you don’t want to expose yourself outside, you can always try out online sellers like The Greenthumb Souvenirs. Though they offer ornamental plants that are intended to be given away as souvenirs, the store has a wide selection of succulents, cacti, and even rare plants starting from P350. 

 

A staple among work-from-home employees, stress relief rubs are affordable and easy to find. And with so many aromas to choose from starting at around P100 per 50g, you might as well buy an entire set for someone who really needs them. Our top pick for this would be Meiyi Creations Spa Essentials, which is available in four different scents: lavender, bubblegum, ginger, and herb. We suggest getting all four so your special partner gets the full spa experience. 

What are other great gift options that are supposed to be on this list? 

Whatever it is you want to give this Christmas, it’s important to keep safe while you shop for the best gift for capping the year!

 

Boost Your E-Commerce Website with These Four Tools

This holiday season, it’s important that your e-commerce website provides the best experience for online shoppers. 

For this, you’ll want to have all the right tools for managing your e-commerce website and making sure that it does well in attracting, nurturing, and converting customers. 

With that being said, here’s a list of the best tools to give your e-commerce website a boost.

 

When it comes to promoting special Christmas offers through email, Mailchimp is by far the best platform for nurturing existing customers and convincing them to make repeat purchases on your e-commerce website. 

Along with built-in tools for emails and social ads, Mailchimp also comes with personalization tools for sending messages that are valuable to each unique audience. Not only that, the platform offers a free website builder to help create your e-commerce store. 

 

Do you wish to see what your audience is looking for? Crazy Egg might be what your website needs for that visualization.

With its HeatMap feature, Crazy Egg provides you detailed insights into how your audience interacts onsite. It does so by giving you a visualization of audience behaviors across various metrics, from the number of clicks to how far your customers scroll. These and a lot more make Crazy Egg a must-have tool for optimizing your e-commerce website. 

 

Returning customers are crucial to your business, which is why you need ProProfs Help Desk to help maintain high levels of satisfaction.

ProProfs comes equipped with the necessities to help your website manage customer interactions such as automated responses for dealing with commonly asked questions and an automated ticket assignment feature that can help streamline your workflows. 

 

Communication is important when it comes to connecting your business and its customers. 

For this, you may want to incorporate live chat into your e-commerce website so you can receive and respond to customers’ queries in real-time. With hundreds of live chat options available, you might want to start with Acquire.

This tool lets you engage customers across multiple devices and channels. In case they run into problems with the products they bought from you, customers can conveniently ask for help. It’s a win-win solution for your business and your audience!

 

While using these tools can help increase the efficiency of your e-commerce website, you still need to learn how to make the most of them.  

In case you need extra hands to make your e-commerce website stand out, you can always hire a team of virtual assistants to prepare your business for more sales and even better client interactions.

Get started with OneVirtual Global Business Solutions today! Click here to schedule a consultation.

4 Ways to Improve Customer Loyalty

Keeping your customers satisfied is one thing, but turning them into loyal clients should have a spot of its own in your long-term business strategy.  

Indeed, for your brand to remain successful and profitable, it has to maintain a solid client base made up of genuine supporters and advocates. According to Bain & Company, every 5% increase in customer retention is attributed to 25% more profits.  

Customer loyalty is an important resource that you should be able to generate on the side. That said, here are a few important tips for turning clients into loyal brand advocates.  

The relationship you have with your customers doesn’t stop at a sales close. You need to go the extra mile by keeping your clients engaged.

Upselling other products or services, asking for testimonials, and encouraging them to subscribe to your newsletter should increase customer lifetime value. More importantly, these post-sales activities can show clients you have a lot more to offer down the line.

Indeed, closing a deal is only half the battle. In order to achieve long-term success, continuous engagement is integral. 

The rewards you give to your customers do not have to be extravagant. It can be as simple as inviting them access to special events, including them in a loyalty program, or sending out personalized emails. 

Discounts are great for attracting repeat sales, but it’s often best to look towards better incentive schemes that add value to both your business and your clients. That said, you can come up with a referral program that rewards clients for every friend or family member they refer. 

It doesn’t always have to be professional between you and your customers. You need to be affectionate and attentive to their needs as well. 

You might want to send a return gift you haven’t heard from them for a while or check in on them through a special email. All this can help you stay relevant and encourage your customers to keep engaging your brand. 

For this, you can use behavioral analytics to evaluate the needs of your clients and develop the proper messages around these needs. That way, you will have better chances of turning casual customers into loyal patrons who wouldn’t hesitate to share or re-tweet whatever you post. 

Your regulars who have been with your business longer deserve the best possible treatment. You wouldn’t be in business anyway if it weren’t for their patronage, so give extra consideration to long-time clients who already have a close working relationship with you.

You are lucky to have a client base that has been with your brand since day one. Their loyalty strengthens your brand presence and generates new business in the form of referrals. You only need help with keeping these types of clients happy as they remain with you for a longer period.

Improving customer loyalty requires hard work. For this reason, it would be wise to consider outsourcing some of your brand-building and customer service tasks to the right professionals.

Virtual assistants can help you improve customer loyalty as they can handle a range of tasks along the lines of customer service and digital marketing. 

You can find these professionals in OneVirtual Global Business Solutions, the leading provider of virtual assistants in your industry. Schedule a consultation today.

Why Your Ecommerce SEO Strategy is Falling Short

Like it or not, your SEO or search engine optimization strategy for your e-commerce website will eventually fall short of delivering your targets.

Your website could be losing in terms of monthly visits and conversions. It might have gotten outranked by your competitors. Whichever the case, improving your SEO strategy should always begin by knowing why it is losing out.

Here are the four main culprits that drag your SEO strategy to the ground: 

 

Content is king in the world of e-commerce since customers require more information before making a purchase. Moreover, content is crucial for increasing your e-commerce brand’s search ranking.

If you are not updating your e-commerce website with fresh content, there’s a good chance for your searchability to decrease.

So, try to figure out the last time you posted content on your website. If it has already been too long, then consider creating a long-form blog or an infographic that your audience cares about. 

 

A poorly optimized website seriously damages the chances of maintaining a good position in the search engine results pages or SERPs. For this, you may want to conduct an audit to see what problems need fixing.

You know your website needs an update if you find the following issues:

  • A URL that is way too long
  • Bad links that lead nowhere or are confusing to navigate
  • Messy content that is unappealing to the eyes

There are lots more you need to watch out for, so make sure to hire a web design and web development virtual assistant to see what optimizations you might want to consider for your e-commerce website. 

 

Have you considered that you may have targeted the wrong audience for your e-commerce website?

This can be one of the many reasons your SEO strategy isn’t bringing in any revenue. Targeting people who don’t need a certain product will only result in a lower-than-average conversion rate and a higher bounce rate, both of which can affect your website’s ranking.

While you are in the process of assessing your SEO strategy, consider changing your keyword list. Look for phrases or terms that are targeted towards ideal clients. For this, you might need to include the location and type of product your ideal customers are looking for. 

 

Speaking of keywords, your e-commerce business has to focus on using keywords with high search volumes and clicks. 

Indeed, the battle for the top place in the search results relies heavily on the keywords you incorporate into your website. But as customer preferences and online behaviors change, you will need to structure your keyword strategy to better engage these dynamics.

For this, take time analyzing trending keywords and use tools like SpyFu to come up with an updated keyword list you can work with. Better yet, outsource your SEO to an offshore team that specializes in analyzing and optimizing your website for better visibility. 

 

SEO can be a tricky and lengthy process to undertake, which is why most e-commerce businesses choose to hire virtual assistants who have the right skills and experience for it.

OneVirtual Global Business Solutions has you covered with its team of web development virtual assistants who are ready to handle your e-commerce business’s SEO requirements. Get started by scheduling a consultation.

Tips For Managing Your Cleaning Business

Managing a cleaning business can be a difficult venture to undertake. You will need to hire and supervise a team of professional cleaners, procure the right equipment, and come up with the kinds of services you offer to clients.

On top of that, you also need to manage your finances and market your services to those who need them. 

Luckily, there are a few tips you can apply to run your cleaning business smoothly. Here are a few of the best ones:

 

Enhancing your online presence helps support your promotional efforts. For this, you can get help with search engine optimization to make your business easily searchable on Google. You can also initiate social media and email marketing campaigns which can help with brand-building and customer outreach. 

For sure, focusing more on promoting your brand online makes it easier to seek out potential clients. Be sure to find the right experts to help you put your cleaning business front and center.

 

Team management has always been tricky to handle. Fortunately, there are apps that can help keep track of orders and ensure real-time communication among cleaning personnel. 

Tools like Scoro, Slack, or Trello are great for maintaining cohesiveness. When it comes to managing bookings, you can use platforms like Launch27 and Zenmaid to track orders from clients and enhance the productivity of your personnel on the ground.  

 

Time management is crucial to keeping a cleaning company running smoothly. Using a few more tools such as Jibble can help you maximize the hours you spend on a single task so you will have more time for other critical aspects of your business. 

 

At the end of the day, you want your customers to feel that they are valued. After all, a loyal customer base maintains profitability since it guarantees recurring bookings and repeat sales.  

Not only that but improving your approach to customer service also attracts new customers. People who have had positive experiences with your brand are bound to promote it through word of mouth. That being said, consider providing 24/7 customer service by phone, chat, or email. 

 

Now that you know some of the best ways to manage your cleaning company, all you need to do now is to hire the right people who can help apply these approaches. 

For this, you can hire a team of cleaning virtual assistants to handle everything from managing your residential cleaning bookings to promoting your brand through social media. 

OneVirtual Global Business Solutions is here to provide the tools and expertise your cleaning business needs to stay competitive, save money and time, as well as explore better opportunities. Schedule a consultation with us to get started.

The 4 Tips You Need to Start a Video Marketing Campaign

Your business may be trying out different marketing tactics. But if you haven’t tried video marketing before, now is a good time to do so. 

Videos are becoming integral as they can help raise brand awareness and convert new clients. The challenge, however, is for you to create videos that add value to your marketing efforts.   

Apply the tips below and build a video marketing strategy that keeps your business moving:

 

Video content is designed to show more than tell. It’s easy to get caught up discussing the technical aspects of your products or services. But without showing their actual benefits, you won’t be able to give your audience a compelling enough reason to engage. 

The best you can do is to focus on information that matters to your audience. Don’t waste precious seconds beating around the bush and throwing up technical jargon. Simply present a problem and show how your business is going to solve it. 

 

What platforms offer the best opportunities for your video marketing campaign? 

If your business designs websites or works with professionals in the creative industry, consider posting your best work on Instagram. If you are targeting consumers, then a series of videos on Facebook should help garner brand awareness and engagement. 

Choosing the best platform for publishing your videos helps you maximize your viewership and, therefore, generate more clients. 

 

Closed captioning is crucial in video marketing, especially if you intend to share videos on social networking sites.

In most cases, consumers may not have the time to watch a video in its entirety, so you might as well provide captions that tell them what the video is all about. After all, you can’t engage people if they don’t know what you are trying to tell them. 

 

According to Statista.com, smartphones were the primary devices for viewing online videos in 2019. And as more and more people rely on tablets and other mobile gadgets for shopping or finding the services they need, your videos should provide excellent viewing experiences across various devices. 

For this, you will need to produce high-quality videos that are shot using a square orientation. It also helps to use bigger fonts to emphasize your value propositions and calls to action. Be sure to give your videos a test view before publishing it on YouTube or other platforms. 

 

Want to get started building a video marketing strategy for your business? You will need to find the right professionals who can help you with that.  

Reach out to us and see how our digital marketing virtual assistants can craft and support your video campaign. Contact us today!

Why Quality Customer Service Is Important For Your Business

The way you handle your customer service can make or break your company. Do it right, it will help boost the reputation of your brand and get repeat sales. Do it wrong, you risk losing loyal customers. 

That being said, quality customer service (literally) speaks volumes about your business because your customers are bound to share their experiences with you. 

But more than that, there are many other reasons why you will need to invest in effective customer service. Here are a few of them:

 

Providing better service can mean a lot if you own a small business.

The better the reputation you have, the more likely your company will be able to grow in the long run. For this reason, you will need to give your all when it comes to customer service early on. Starting with a small client base, you may want to build rapport and engage your customers directly. Never miss out on an opportunity to connect with your audience.

 

Who better to give word of mouth about your business than your loyal customers? Their positive reviews will benefit your business when you give them satisfactory service in helping them resolve problems or issues they encounter with your product or service.

That being said, the better service you provide, the more likely customers will recommend and talk positively of your company to others. This, in turn, helps lure more customers to your business.

 

Customer loyalty is another reason why you should focus on improving the way you respond to customer queries and feedback. 

Loyal customers always stick by your side, recommend your brand, and help you find better opportunities for network-building and generating leads.  

For this, consider rewarding long-time and repeat customers with special offers. You may want to distribute vouchers and freebies that will entice them to stay with your brand for a longer time. It helps if you are able to send emails regularly to existing customers to keep them engaged with your brand. So long as you communicate with them using messages that add value, you can turn these customers into loyal ones.

 

The better your customer service is, the more that you’ll understand what they want.

Customer service connects your business to your clients, you might not get it perfect the first time around, but the more that you attempt to do so, you’ll understand what does and does not work when it comes to tending to the daily needs and inquiries of your customers.

Providing your loyal customers with the quality and satisfactory service that they deserve is only the best way that you can thank them for staying. Then again, it takes time and the right skills to keep customers interested in your product or service.

 

Hiring a team of customer service virtual assistants should help acquire the tools and skills you need to keep your customers happy. OneVirtual Global Business Solutions specializes in providing virtual assistants who can handle customer inquiries. 

Schedule a consultation and see how we can help you with raising customer satisfaction!