Optimise your Communication and Admin Skills

Flag your Emails

If you get overloaded by too many emails that you know need attention, but that can’t be dealt with right away, then what I do is Flag them – so just click the little flag on the relevant email, then later on in Outlook, click the little Filter icon and click Flagged to show all the emails that you have flagged during the day. You can then take your time to deal with them, one at a time, once your busy time is over.

Deal Efficiently with an Overload of Texts

If during the day, you receive too many texts to deal with, on-the-fly, I copy the text message and paste it into an email to myself, which I can in turn Flag, to be dealt with at a later date.

Have an Effective Voice Message to Attract More Customers

Consider how your voice message on your phone might sound to a caller. I don’t think that it’s a good idea to say, “Please don’t leave a voice message, send me a text”. It makes businesses look disorganised and inefficient. What they are unwittingly doing, in my opinion, is transferring their administration problems back onto the caller.

So, if a potential customer is in a hurry and wants to engage your services, they might be put off by having to hang up, open their text icon and right out what could be a lengthy text, as an explanation for how they would like to use your services. I wonder how many callers don’t send a text at all and move on to a competitor where they can easily leave a voice message.

Every business should make it easy for customers to communicate directly with them. The ideal voice message, in my opinion, should be something like, “Hello, John Doe speaking. Please leave your name and a brief message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible”. You can see their phone number from the call log on your phone.

Once you have listened to your Recent messages you could send yourself a quick email saying Check “Recent” phone calls, so that later that day, or in the evening you can deal with all the communications from the day, and not miss out on any opportunities.