As a busy Executive Assistant during this third lockdown and second helping of home-schooling 2 primary school aged children, I have to be even more organised, on the ball and ensure I manage my time carefully. Below are my 5 tips on how to manage client demands. They come from my own personal perspective as a Virtual EA, but I feel these tips could help employed PAs/EAs as well as many other professionals in service based roles dealing with client demands.
- Get up earlier: It may sound obvious but getting up an hour or 2 earlier will set you up for a much more productive day and means you start your day already ahead. I try to get up and login around 7am so I can reply to any emails, send out emails that I need responses on and prioritise my ‘to do’ list for the day.
- Don’t over promise: Explain to your clients what your current work/life situation is (most people are dealing with the same issues), set realistic deadlines and don’t promise to do something you know is going to stress you out, force you to say up late or that means you will under deliver. Agree with your client a reasonable deadline for both of you.
- Outsource: Bring people into your team to help with your own business admin, your social media or your accounts (especially with 31st January looming!). Outsourcing will free up so much time for you to focus on the more pressing matters that your clients really need your expertise for.
- Stay in touch: Speak to your clients often on the phone, via Skype, by text or email, whatever works best for your relationship. Keep them up to date with what actions you are doing, what you have completed and what is taking longer than you expected.
- Listen: everyone is going through ups and downs at the moment. I am a great believer that one of the most important jobs as an EA is to be a listening ear and a sounding board. Listen to your clients’ concerns or worries, give suggestions on ways to make their issues better or even take control of the items that are concerning them if possible.
I hope those tips have helped, I’d love to hear how you deal with your client demands so please feel free to share below.