Quick Access To The Case Study Questions
Jade Wellings – is the Corporate Services Manager at AAOK Parks. AAOK Parks are a family owned group of Companies who own and operate Caravan Parks, Resorts/Motels and Workforce Accommodation including restaurants. AAOK Parks operate in QLD, WA and NT.
2 Minutes and 5 Seconds
Why Did You Decide To Outsource?
Jade: Well, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and as you guys know I met you at the property management conference, which I do come to every year and even though I don’t directly run a property management business anymore, I’m still involved in the accommodation industry. A group of family companies that do caravan, parks, motels, resorts, and workforce accommodation.
So it’s always been in the back of my mind maybe for 3 or 4 years before I even did it. Long before I even knew you guys and when I met you at the conference and I got to see some of your staff in the Philippines and see them up on the screen, talk to them, interact with them, realize that they’re actually just people.
Eva: And human, aren’t they?
Jade: Yeah.
Eva: And they speak English. Really well.
Jade: They were lovely! I guess I’ve always wanted to have a crack at it but always been worried about whether I’d have enough work that I could outsource or give to them to keep them busy. And where we’ve been stuck in our businesses… One of our businesses is actually in remote Western Australia, and it’s one of our largest businesses and we, at any one time in the office, there maybe have about 4 staff working. And they struggle to retain them over there because of where it is.
Most of the staff that are coming and going are backpackers. They’re not local to the area. So they’ll come in, they’ll work for 6 months and then they’ll take off. And when they do that, it has a massive impact on the business because we have to spend time, then re-train.
Eva: And that’s so expensive.
Jade: I would say even now still, even though we have outsourced and we’ve reduced that problem, the problem is still there because we do still have to, we’re constantly in training-someone-new mode, but by outsourcing, because the stability of the workforce in the Philippines is much higher than what it is in remote Western Australia, we can have a team member or two that we know are gonna be stuck there and stay with us for the long-term.
Eva: Yes.
Jade: So that’s one.
3 Minutes and 12 Seconds
Training The Offshore Staff
Damien: One of the things that we work on really strong with the clients is actually having a process. Team members even in the Philippines, we’ve all — we’ve got a system to actually reduce our training burden on their clients. So that if we do have to change team members then we can actually move forward with and have us, the client is not impacted as much as it would be like.
Eva: I guess that’s what should happen to you. So Jade in your situation, we had Tess working for you and she was lucky enough that she gets a Visa approved to go and live in Canada. But we had Ella that stepped in and, we’re having the conversation yesterday, and you haven’t even spoken to Ella yet, and she’s fully taken over the role. Completely, seamlessly.
Jade: Yeah.
Eva: Actually, you need to talk to her today.
Jade: Yes, yes. It has been good because they will spend the 3 weeks together training each other, but that’s not even the main thing I think that is the selling point for that because where it’s really shown for me is you guys taught me how to use all of the technology that I needed to communicate with them. You taught me how to record a training session with the VA. So when thinking back to our very first VA, Queenie, we had a nickname. And my staff actually, not myself personally, but my staff all trained her on these videos and we saved all the videos into our Google Drive, and then I think we’ve t– so just to be clear for anyone that’s listening, I’ve got 2 VAs and the first one works for the Western Australia place, and the second lot work — “lot”, because I’ve had two in each site. So the first one, when Queenie turned over and we had to get somebody else, they were able to just sit there and watch all the same videos that she watched. So it really minimized the time that the people in the office had to spend actually training. And then the same thing with Cess. So yes.
Jade: You know who we’re talking about.
Eva: Yes we do.
Jade: But the other place that I didn’t expect it to shine really was the staff that we get in the office is usually the Australians or the backpackers if it isn’t in Australia, that come in that we would normally spend a lot of time training — on their first day we can just say sit down and watch these videos, and they’re watching the videos we made for our VAs.
Eva: So she streamlined the entire business across board in Australia and the Philippines. And actually we were having a conversation just before and you mentioned Jing. Jing is a little screen capturing tool. So you make sure you tell everybody about Jing.
Jade: I know! And actually Jing and Zoom, the two programs you showed me how to use, we use them everyday for all sorts of things.
Eva: That’s exactly right.
Jade: And now I’ve even started using Zoom for myself. So you know when you do those tasks and you’re the only one that knows how to do it, I was sitting there the other day, only probably about three weeks ago in my office, going “ugh, I’m the only one that knows how” it was the most boring task. I’m like, I’m just gonna make a Zoom video on this. I’m just gonna put it into my cloud so that if somebody else says, “oh no I can’t do that.” I can go well, “here’s a video.”
Eva: But if you go on holidays, but what if something happens and you needed someone to step in?
Jade: Exactly.
Eva: Everybody should be replaceable no matter what role they hold. That’s my theory.
Jade: Agree. Yep.
2 Minutes and 58 Seconds
Why Did You Choose Us?
Jade: I was probably less panicky than what a real estate agent would be because I’m not operating a trust account. That’s one thing. But I did query that. I think it was yourself Damien, I was talking to in the early days and another family member that works in a group of companies, Fiona, I don’t know if you’ve spoken to her.
Eva: No.
Jade: She said to me, “Oh there’s this other company,” I won’t say what they are, what their name is. “There’s this other company that do it, and they’re cheaper.” And I said “oh really?” She goes, “Well make sure you look into them, too, because I met them somewhere.” And I was like “well I met these guys somewhere.” And I said okay, to be fair I’ll look into them and I contacted them as well.
And the key difference between you guys and them and the reason why it felt, I didn’t even think that much to be honest in the early days, if it’s a security. I thought ah, it’s worth the risk, we’ll see what happens. I’m a bit of a risk taker. But it became apparent when I talk to these guys and then back to Damien again because the other guys have staff working from a house on their own laptop where you know, everybody’s got a rooster in their backyard, I was told!
Eva: Or dogs.
Jade: Or dogs that make noise. If the VA is gonna be using the phone that’s gonna be a problem. And also there’s a real issue there with where the data is stored. So they’re accessing my system from their own laptops and their own desktops. What’s happening with that, and what happens if they stop working for me?
And then the other thing that I liked about you guys was that instead of that, you have an office with supervisors and generators, because the power is renowned for going out over there as well.
Eva: Particularly in a home-based environment, it’s more stable in commercial zones, but it’s an issue.
Jade: And a colleague of mine did go through the other knob and she did say that. She said it’s always dropping and it’s crap.
Eva: So we need to talk to your colleague, obviously.
Jade: She had a terrible experience and she has a trust account. And this is through somebody else. And it’s solely because that they didn’t have any protection and it was just the
Eva: That’s a serious issue. Particularly like what if the clients find out about it?
Jade: I love that I know that my people turn up for work in your building, under the review of your supervisors, on your computers.
Eva: But we also have some non-disclosure agreements as well. So technically, not that it has ever happened, but if somebody was to even think about doing something wrong, we can, we have a legally binding agreement which they have signed. Which is impossible. That’s important. The knowledge that it’s there, is a massive factor in preventing it from happening in the first place.
1 Minute and 51 Seconds
How Is Your Local Staff Working With Your Outsourced Team Members?
Jade: You know, in the early days you can see the looks, like are we losing are jobs, are they outsourcing every — you know, in the early days. And I’ve been communicating with them here and there about how it’s going and they love it. They think it’s so good, it’s so much help. One of the big challenges we had in our Western Australia office was the emails that would flood in and we did a mystery shop on some of our competitors and ourselves to see how long it would take to respond to an email, like booking requests or some accommodation. Fiona did this one. One of the competitors was like, within 5 minutes. And we took hours.
And now that we’ve got a new one, Ella, in place. A new one that I must talk to, now that we’ve got Ella in place, the emails are clean. And every now and then one of the girls, one of our VAs needs to take a day off and everyone’s fine with it. The other day was the first time I noticed I said, “Oh she’s gonna take a day off on this day.” And they were like “Oh my god the emails!” Yeah exactly, “what am I gonna do?”
Damien: So do you like communicate with your clients? Or is it via email or?
Jade: Yes. Only via email. We don’t do phones yet, mostly because we haven’t had a need to. It’s like they are emailing, and we have some quite large clients that booked hundreds of rooms with us at only one time.
Eva: Any comment from the clients so far, like has anyone mentioned anything?
Jade: Yep. Yeah. We did have one company that was a little bit disgruntled with our service and then they dealt with — it was the previous one of our VAs — and we’re just singing her praises in an email. They have no idea she’s on the other side of the world.
Eva: Fantastic!
Jade: They have nicknames that are commonly Australian-sounding names. That helps, too, because I think they just believe they’re in our office, and we don’t tell them otherwise.
Eva: But you actually have a Filipino person working in your office, too.
Jade: We do! We do.
Eva: That’s right.
Jade: One of our longest-serving members in our office is a Filipino, actually. He’s physically in the office. That’s been helpful too, for us.
46 Seconds
What Difference Has Outsourcing Made For Your Business?
Damien: What’s the biggest difference it’s made to your business? And has the outsourcing changed, I suppose your lifestyle, your business. The business in Western Australia or in Queensland.
Jade: Productively, largely. Productivity, customer service obviously because they get back to people really quickly. The fact that all the people in the office have a lighter load. We are able to put less people on the roster as a result of that and that helps with the bottom line as well. We don’t like spending a lot of money on wages, but yeah it’s everything. It’s been amazing.
Eva: What about stress levels or? Has that impacted the business at all?
Jade: Yeah, definitely. It’s lower. It’s lower for the guys on the ground working in the office. They know they’ve got that backup.
1 Minute and 3 Seconds
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TASKS OFFSHORE TEAM COMPLETE TO GAIN PEAK GROWTH, EFFICIENCY AND SUPPORT!
The average business owner works over 50 hours each week, with an additional 25% working greater than 60 hours each week. On the flip side, the average number of hours your staff work is decreasing, falling from 35.5 hours per week in 1979 and now at 32.8 hours per week as of 2009.
The most common response around the business owner working greater hours than their staff is costs associated with hiring staff in their business. Based on this trend, business owners will have to continue to work more hours every week in order to remain successful in business unless they find another way to break the cycle.
This is where outsourcing / offshoring your daily and weekly tasks can assist in the growth of your business. This can be through the freeing up of your time, allowing the reallocation of funds into other areas like marketing or the support of your existing staff to better enable them to do their jobs.
Our Method Of Outsourcing
We have a professionally operated and maintained commercial premise within the Philippines offering very clean and professional office environment, continual fibre optic internet and uninterrupted power.
Our method of outsourcing ensures your team become an important part of your business, at the same time allowing full control of your team and the handling of your proprietary or sensitive information.
You control each stage from hiring to daily assigning of tasks with your team (local and overseas) acting as a support for your offshore staff and offering peace of mind to grow your own offshore team.
Personal Assistant Tasks
Assisting with daily tasks that overly occupy your time. This can be following up with suppliers, ordering client gifts, booking flights, email management, co-ordination of you calendar managing your social media profiles and much more.
Customer Support
Manage incoming calls, customer satisfaction surveys, tracking of products, email & support tickets and escalation of important calls for action.
Social Media
Actioning & development of social media plans. Social media interaction and growing your social media reach, development of sales funnels and creation & management of social media accounts.
Bookkeeping and Administration
Invoicing, Debt collection, email followups, confirming appointments and other general administration tasks
Specialised Industry Tasks
Ordering and tracking of raw materials, product enquiries, preparation of quotes & proposals, market research, preparation of reports, forecast tracking & budgetting.
Data Entry and Transcription
Data collection & interpretation, Transcribe Audio & Video in text, Uploading data in CRM’s & other data management systems, Transcribing physically scanned documents.
CRM Management
Complete CRM management including Entering and maintaining database records including new clients, opportunities, tasks and to-dos & assigning staff to tasks where necessary, Entering data to notes section, updating status, and managing task lists & appointment notes.
Correspondence & File Management
Managing electronic filing system and email correspondence including labelling / filing of emails, proper filing of files and applying naming conventions to filing structures based on custom specifications.
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HOW YOU CAN GET A FREE CONSULTATION!
We understand deciding if outsourcing is a good fit for your business can be daunting which is why we offer a no obligation Free consultation. When you contact us we’ll have a brief chat to get a better understanding of your business and will discuss ‘HOW’ outsourcing can work within your business. We’ll share key points of outsourcing including the ongoing investment, exact applicants that you can get access to and the infrastructure we have to support our clients. To find out more about this Special Offer, fill up the form below where we’ll grab a few simple details and will be in contact shortly.
OTHER HAPPY CLIENTS
I’m happy to talk to you about how it’s assisted us, and how we’re able to trust David and his team, and we’ve got other mutual clients that you could talk to as well.
I’ve had a long term relationship with Affordable Staff as a client and Trust them strongly.
Affordable Staff are great. My full time virtual assistant has been a game changer for my business and the terms you enter into are easy and straightforward.
I can’t recommend Affordable Staff highly enough, the entire team from the management to the VA’s to our representative Damien have all been with us every step of the way in implementing processes and structure which has created an efficient streamlined business. If ever I need anything Damien is only a call away and always willing to listen and introduce new ideas to provide solutions.
The introduction of a VA to our property management division has been nothing short of a game changer’.
I can now provide a new level of unequalled support to ten property managers across three separate sites.
Bite the bullet and give it a go. It’s been an incredibly valuable addition to our business. We’ve taken steps forward, we’ve been doing it for a few years and I’ve already seen significant change to our business.
I’d just like to thank you guys for what you’ve done for us as it’s been really, really helpful.
I can’t recommend Affordable Staff highly enough as my team are fully supported. The pressure is taken off where we can now have lunch every day and actually leave on time every afternoon.
We have operated with a remote team assisting our property management processes over a year now. Our experience with Affordable Staff has been fantastic.
The way they recruit and then induct the team is second to none. I can say this because we have had experience with another company. They are easy to deal with and upskill the girls on the programs before they start working with you.
Their understanding of the industry is great and they are all very easy to deal with. If you are considering hiring a remote team, Affordable Staff are the people you should be talking with.
My recommendation for any business is to take a step back and look at what’s coming to the market. Look at software, hardware and social media.
Look also at outsourcing but don’t look at it as something that’s going to take away from your business, rather something that’s going to add value to your business.
I’ve always been apprehensive of outsourcing as I didn’t know where to start, thought it would involve a lot of my time and had fears around working with a person based in another country. Damien and the team at Affordable Staff held my hand throughout the entire process. I am now 12 months on and could not work without the support of my VA. I found the transition of working with Affordable Staff surprisingly easy, cost effective and my VA to be loyal, polite and always going above and beyond my expectations.
We haven’t employed the team overseas to get rid of any team we have in our office… It’s to add value to the team in our office. Our local staff can now focus on more client-facing and client-building relationships while our team in the Philippines are doing some of the back-end things to help them out in their day-to-day operations.
We’re also adding more value added services to our clients, too. We’re introducing a lot of things that we just could not have done otherwise. Whereas before we just didn’t have the manpower to achieve it. So I think now, we can give a much higher level of service to our clients because they’re helping the team do that.