Why Virtual Assistants Need To Know About AI

As a self-employed virtual assistant, I’ll guess you pride yourself on the personal touch and delivering your clients something no-one else can. You love giving your clients more than they bargained for and you’re never happier than when they’re delighted with your service.

So let’s start with this at the front of our mind - the fact that every VA wants to give their clients the very best experience, the importance of the human factor when it comes to, well, quite frankly, all aspects of life, and that only you can do what you do.

What makes a good client experience?

One of the wonderful things about VA life can be the breadth of tasks we support our clients with. Coupled with that, the different personalities of our clients all make for a varied, interesting and (hopefully) fun business journey.

Despite each client having different needs they'll all want to have a great experience with you.

Let’s look at four common expectations that clients have of their VA;

• Good communication

• Attention to detail

• Anticipating issues

• Problem solving

What do you think when you read that list? 

Are you thinking, yep, they’re all irreplaceable human traits?

Well, you wouldn’t be completely wrong, but you wouldn’t be completely right either.

Everyday AI Is Already Here

In 2023 the words “artificial intelligence” have leapt out at us all, and it’d be easy to assume that AI is something new, just recently introduced to the world.

But the reality is that AI is already woven into so many parts of our lives - here's a short list of tools you’ll recognise;

• Social media algorithms

• Predictive texting and autocorrect

• Email spam filters

• Navigation apps with real-time traffic updates

• Language translation apps

• Customer support chatbots

• Health and fitness apps

Just look at how AI has made our daily lives so much easier and enjoyable!

It’s important to recognise that artificial intelligence has already improved so many lives, and continues to do so every day. Yet, with this new wave of AI, where tools such as ChatGPT are now commonplace, a new level of uncertainty has arisen among business owners.

How the Role of a Virtual Assistant will Change

Remember the list of common criteria that clients expect from their VA? Good communication, attention to detail, anticipating issues and problem solving.

Let’s take each in turn and look at possible ways that AI could help us, as VAs, better deliver services to our clients.

Good communication

1. Voice to text transcription - have an AI transcription tool join your calls and have it send the meeting notes to your inbox straight afterwards.

2. Chatbots - deploy an instant messaging tool to answer questions outside of core hours.

3. Document editing - use a large language model (LLM) tool, such as ChatGPT, to make documents more appealing, engaging or easier to understand for your intended audience.

Attention to detail

1. Proofreading - have a proofreading tool improve the accuracy and overall quality of written content.

2. Report summaries - use AI to extract the key points from lengthy documents.

3. Quality control - have online software quality check work for any errors before it goes to the recipient.

Anticipating issues

1. Identifying trends - use a tool to monitor and highlight industry trends and stay ahead of potential issues.

2. Analysing sentiment - ask AI to determine the emotional tone behind a communication to anticipate any concerns.

3. Predictive analysis - have historical data about your business better inform your future decisions.

Problem solving

1. Troubleshooting guide - build a problem solving guide based on past data to help with future issues.

2. Dynamic scheduling - use AI to set the priority level of tasks, allowing time to be optimised and get more done.

3. Automatic resolution - have a tool automatically take action when certain criteria is met, such as handling a customer refund.

The future of meeting our client’s needs will most definitely include embracing the right AI and applying it in our own unique way.  Less of an “AI takeover” and more of an “AI enhancement” to our work.

Choosing to Ignore AI

Any tool, whether it be the most complex piece of tech, or a spiral-bound paper diary, should serve a purpose. Moreover, it should address a need or bring about an improvement in some way.

Generally speaking, introducing new software into a business should address at least one of these objectives;

• Meet a compliance need

• Reduce costs / increase profit

• Improve accuracy / reduce errors

• Improve customer satisfaction

• Facilitate growth

• Save time

As virtual assistants, opting not to explore how AI could improve our own business is, at the very least, a missed opportunity. Not to say that any and every tool will be worth exploring, but taking an interest in AI developments and choosing which options to explore further will be key to making the most of what’s available.

Remember too that, over time, our client’s understanding and expectations about how AI might be used in their business will also change. By choosing not to ignore the impact that artificial intelligence is having within businesses, also means you’ll be better prepared for having these discussions with your clients.

Why Virtual Assistants Should Embrace AI

We can all have those days, where we wish it’d go back to simply people helping people, and not worrying about technology taking over our jobs.

But the technology that we all rely on day to day, plus the tools that haven’t even been invented yet, ultimately serve to make our lives, and businesses, more productive and even more fun! You only have to use an AI image generator for 10 minutes to realise how exciting it is to see your wild and wacky ideas come to life.

As VAs, we’re all about saving our clients time and freeing up their headspace. So it makes complete sense that we’d look to do the same for ourselves too, right? If you find a piece of kit that does this and it works well for you, implement and use it. In fact, implement, use and share it with someone else you think might benefit from it!

Embracing AI at your own pace will serve you well by not allowing the feeling of being left behind to creep in. It’ll also mean that you continue to not only serve your clients as best you can, but yourself.

First Steps to Exploring AI

If I’ve whetted your appetite but you just don’t know where to start, here’s your step by step guide to get a taster for a range of AI tools. For each one, why not block a 30 to 60 minute slot in your dairy, to commit to testing them out.

1. Use ChatGPT for free

Ask ChatGPT anything at all. Maybe start with asking it something about your ideal customer, such as, “What social media platform would an interior designer use?” or “What irritates estate agents about the lettings market?”

When you ask a question or give an instruction using ChatGPT, this is commonly referred to as a "prompt". And remember, you can’t break it, so make your prompts as simple or complex as you want. Be sure to play around to see how the response you get changes depending on what you ask.

1. Use Zapier for free

Zapier enables otherwise unconnected tools to communicate with each other. For example, you might ask for a new contact to be created in a CRM or spreadsheet every time someone signs up to a mailing list. 

When you build a chain of events like this, it's called a zap. Each zap having a trigger (something that starts the process) and an action (what you want to happen).

The software gently guides you through building and testing each zap, keeping you on track along the way as it indicates what part of the zap is working and what needs your attention before it can work.

1. Use Fathom for free

Fathom will automatically join your online meetings, record them and drop the transcript into your inbox when you’re done. Not only that, but you can view a summary of the questions that were asked and get a higher level overview of the meeting.

The added feature with this transcription tool is that it also records the screen, making it a really handy all in one tool.

Become A Future-Ready Virtual Assistant

Working with new technology has always been a string to a virtual assistant’s bow and AI is part of that same instrument.

Remember, any new tool should always meet a need or bring a benefit in some way, otherwise you’re at risk of just playing rather than mindfully testing and implementing.

To end, here are a few final thoughts on how to raise your awareness of AI without feeling overwhelmed;

• Speak to other VAs and find out where they are in their AI journey. One place you can do this is in the ExecQua Facebook Group

• Set aside a little time each month dedicated to exploring tools that might benefit your business.

• Make suggestions of new technology to your clients where appropriate, explaining why you think it will benefit their business.

#AI #VirtualAssistant #VirtualAssistantFuture

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