5 Ways PSA Helps Your Business Overcome Remote Work Limitations

 

Remote work requires you to digitize your usual business processes. This means investing in various tools and software for each aspect of your operations. However, juggling several systems at once can be tough. Moreover, it can get costly in the long run. With a Professional Services Automation (PSA) software, you can have an all-in-one platform that serves as your main hub for all business activities.

With remote work on the rise, businesses are scrambling to improve their operational efficiency and optimize their resources to make the setup more effective. As a result, Grand View Research estimates that the demand for professional services automation tools will reach $16 million by 2025.

With that, here are some ways PSA software can help your business overcome the limitations of remote work.

1. Standardize and optimize workflows

Majority of businesses worry about the lack of structure when it comes to remote work. The change in setup can drastically change your workers’ workflow. What might have worked back in the office might no longer work at their respective homes. This can impact their performance and productivity in the process.

Using PSA business, you can standardize and optimize your workflows through automation. It can work on administrative tasks such as entering data, updating databases, revising spreadsheets, and process purchases or invoices. 

Most importantly, automation can reduce chances of errors and bottlenecks unlike their human counterparts. This is because they don’t get distracted or exhausted in the long run. As a result, they can produce the same quality of work all throughout, while also streamlining your employees’ workflow.

2. Promote collaboration

Communication processes during remote work can become even more time-consuming compared to traditional setup. Your employees can only rely on emails, messaging apps, phone, or video calls instead of just simply coming over their desk or workspace to talk with their colleagues. This makes collaboration a lot more difficult in the process.

Fortunately, PSA softwares also has project management modules that will help you organize, execute, and track your team’s projects. Through it, you can assign specific tasks to your members, set deadlines, and share ideas for your projects. Moreover, it will allow you to choose which project management methodology can work best for your teams. With the best professional services automation software, your teams can coordinate seamlessly and deliver projects on time.

3. Monitor and track productivity

With your employees working from their respective homes, it will be harder to keep track of their activities and productivity. What you need is a time tracker. It will give you an overview of how your staff manage their time while working remotely. This way, you feel more confident and assured that your employees are still being productive.

PSA software can provide you with such functions. It allows your remote workers to enter their work hours and report their progress for the day. It can also keep records of your employees’ individual performance and see who is bringing the most revenue into your business. You can even export your PSA’s timesheet into your payroll program to streamline payroll processes. You can check out this list of professional services automation software options available to find out what other time tracking tools they have.

4. Improve client relationships

PSA software can help you deliver consistent service to your customers. It can stand in as your customer relationship management (CRM) system that will connect you to your clients even though your workers are working remotely. It will provide you the data you need to manage all your clients and make them available to your employees no matter where they are.

One good example is EzPSA. It offers a convenient self-service client portal where your customers can immediately access your services in just a few licks. 

It can also send emails to help you nurture your leads and keep your clients engaged. With these features, you can improve your customer service despite the limitations of remote work.

5. Provide fully centralized database

Another issue with remote work is the transfer and accessibility of data. With your employees working from different locations, you must make sure that they have access to essential data, documents, and files. Sending everything through emails can be inefficient and ineffective. You would want a centralized database that serves as a single source of truth for everyone within your organization.

A PSA software can do just that. Since it is an all-in-one professional services platform, you can have all your essential data in one system—from customer data, project progress reports, and employees’ performance data. This ensures that everyone is working on the same data no matter which department or team they are in. It also prevents loss of important documents or files. Moreover, this makes it easier to protect all your data and keep track of them in the process.

Taking advantage of PSA

As more businesses turn to remote work, you must find the right tools and software to help your employees adjust to the new setup. With so much software available out there, you might find yourself juggling several all at once. This can become costly and inefficient in the long run. You should consider using a PSA software instead. With it, you have a single system for everything that your business will need to operate remotely. So go ahead and try it out now.

Lessons in Company Culture from Fortune’s 100 Top Places to Work

It can be difficult to know the best ways to promote company culture, but one thing is clear: a strong culture can have a significant impact on your bottom line. In fact, 94% of executives think that a distinct workplace culture is an important factor in overall success. In addition to its connection with productivity, improving your workplace dynamic can help you attract and retain top talent.

Fortune’s annual list of the 100 best businesses for workers can help us learn more about how these companies are promoting a strong internal culture. Improving your business’s mindset is a long process that involves continuous change.

You can use tools like 360 performance reviews to gain a better understanding of how your employees feel before, during, and after the shift in culture. This can give you an inside look as to how successful these changes are. When considering what the 100 best businesses for workers have in common, the following are some of our main takeaways from these top-tier businesses.

Prioritize Diversity and Inclusion 

It’s more important than ever for businesses to show their employees that they’re dedicated to promoting an environment in which everyone feels equal and safe. Millennials are the most diverse generation in American history, and they value working for a company that focuses on these values.

Salesforce, a business well-known for its commitment to social progress and a healthy company culture, was named the best place to work for good reason. Marc Benioff promotes what he calls “Ohana culture” throughout all aspects of the company and applies it to a variety of business practices.

Value Your Employees as Individuals

While salaries and benefits have always been important factors in employee satisfaction, businesses have recently started to put a greater emphasis on other areas to promote employee engagement. In addition to being compensated fairly for their time and skills, workers expect to be seen and treated as individuals.

This development has even reached Fortune’s own methodology, as company culture is now assessed by a wider range of criteria. Businesses were originally compared based on trust, pride, and camaraderie. But, that list has now expanded to seven items, including “maximizing human potential.”

Getting the most out of each employee requires ensuring that everyone at your company has a positive work experience. Rather than looking outside for new talent, focus on developing the skillsets of your existing employees and promoting in-house whenever possible. Doing so will show that you’re invested in their careers.

Creating long-term, sustained business success involves much more than the numbers. Forward-thinking companies in every field are realizing the importance of promoting a healthy internal culture. Applying these mentalities throughout your business practices will help you attract and retain high-quality talent while also increasing productivity.

Tips for a Successful Online Service Desk

Tips for a Successful Online Service Desk
For many companies, the creation of a successful online service desk can be critical to the health of the business. More and more of your potential customers are turning to the web for many of their buying needs, and when they do you need to be ready for them. Just because more of your customers buy online does not mean you can abandon any of the tried and true customer service rules. You will need them, and more, to make that online service desk a key part of your business. Here are just a few tips that you can use to make your customers next online service desk experience a great one.

Getting To Know You – Your About Us Page
One of the most important pages on your site is your About Us page. While many small businesses tend to ignore this, you should make sure that this page has all the important information any new client or customer may want to know about your company. Before they make a purchase they will want to know as much as they can about you, and you can provide it right here. Do you have a brick-and-mortar store in addition to your website? Then show it. Let them know when you were established, your business values and even your mission statement if you have one. The more they know about you and your business the more likely they are to feel comfortable trusting your website with their business and their credit card.

Make Contact Easy
Your website should have a variety of ways that a visitor can contact your business. This should include a physical address, an email address and a phone number for your online service desk. In fact, if at all possible a quick and easy "live chat" button that connects them directly to your online service desk to answer questions or offer help should be on every page of your site. And remember to make that site easy to read on their smart phones so they can call for help at any time while browsing on their phones. Don't let the next visitor to your website leave in frustration because they couldn't understand something on your site. Always give them a multitude of ways to get help fast.

Always Be Available
One of the things so many people love about shopping online is they can do it anytime that is convenient for them. But if your online service desk is only open Monday to Friday during regular business hours, this can hurt your sales. Be sure that you have staff on that desk from early in the morning to late at night so that they can get help when they need it. Also- for those asking for help via email or phone, make it a policy that your online service desk that handles these requests always responds within 24 hours.

Make Social Media Your Friend
In today's modern world social media has become an important tool in providing good customer service. It starts with making sure your business has the basics: a Facebook page and a Twitter account. It continues by making sure those sites, and other social media sites, are monitored regularly. Customer problems can be identified quickly when using social media to address complaints and take care of them in a timely manner. If you make your social media sites customer-friendly and even add a forum to your site to handle problems quickly, you will find loyal customers who will brag about you to friends on their social media pages. You can't buy that kind of public relations, but you can earn it.

Making the Customer First
Whether it is in your physical location, on your website or in social media, the key is to have your online service desk make sure that your customer's needs come first. Your site should be easy to navigate with an online store that is easy to use. The fewer steps they need to take, the better. Most of all make sure that your training of your online service desk is top notch and they know you value their work. If they are happy and appreciated, your customers will be as well.

Getting Your Online Service Desk Started
If this sounds a little overwhelming, don't be alarmed. Great online service desks start with the right software to support this important first contact. That is where professional service software like our own EzPSA comes in. When your online service desk has all the information they need on clients, vendors and invoices at their fingertips, they will be less stressed and more helpful. With everything from project updates to client backgrounds and up to date status on invoices in one place, you can be assured your service desk has everything they need to make your customers feel appreciated and taken care of properly. Why not check out what our EzPSA software can do to make your online service desk more efficient today? (suggest adding a video demo here)

PSA Software – The Best Tool for Growth

PSA Software – The Best Tool for Growth
Professional Services Automation software, often referred to as PSA software, can be a big boon to any service provider when it comes to streamlining operations and providing greater efficiency. Perhaps that is why it is used by everyone in the IT services industry from consultants to cloud service providers these days. But if you have never used PSA software in your business, you may be wondering what it is that makes it so effective. While it is true that the old in-house tools such as spreadsheets and call lists are still used by many smaller service companies, more and more businesses that excel at providing top-notch service to their customers rely on PSA software to keep them on their toes. Here are just a few reasons why.

Customer Service
If you are in the business of providing a service, any service, then you know that having great customer service can make or break your company. This is where having PSA Software can really make a difference. As we mentioned in an earlier blog post about customer service, your PSA software can put all the information your customer service staff needs at their fingertips. When you back this up with staff that can go out of their way to take care of customers, you have a winning combination. But they can't do their job without the right information, and that is where your PSA software comes into play. By having not only information on the client, but a call log of their earlier requests, an ability to access the status of current projects for that client and vendors that are part of that project, your service staff can help your customer quickly and efficiently.

Project Management
When your entire service team uses PSA software to track time and materials, project management becomes a tool to ensure profitability across the company. Using a PSA software tool such as EzPSA at the planning stage will manage work flow, create estimates for client approval, and in the end generate sales orders and invoices. Because it integrates with customer service and is assess-able by techs in the field via its cloud configuration, your entire workforce is connected to it at all times. This allows quotes to be more accurate, changes to be reflected instantly and gives you the information to continually improve against your competition.

Standing Out from the Crowd
You can use your PSA software to differentiate you from other service providers in your area. If the local service providers are still getting by without this tool, it can be the key to providing faster and more thorough customer service. Your techs know exactly what that client needs, your customer service staff are aware of any special problems they have had in the past and your quotes are accurate. These are the things that make your business stand out in the crowd, and are all easier with a PSA software tool like EzPSA to help.

The Bottom Line is Profits
In the end, a tool that allows you to follow the financial story from concept to project to final billing will give your company the bigger picture on its financial health. With the old fashion fragmented system, time would be wasted comparing apples to oranges as spreadsheets, call lists and customer complaint logs were scrutinized for clues to profitability. Using just one software tool this is an easy snapshot that connects all the dots for your business. At the end of the day, that is truly the difference that makes using PSA software all worthwhile.

Five Tips for Organizing Your Service Business Desk

Five Tips for Organizing Your Service Business Desk
How many times have you said you were going to get that service desk organized? Like so much of our lives, the service desk is both the most indispensable and also most cluttered part of any service business. It is often where everything that comes in the door lands and is also where most of your communications flow for your service business. But because it is such a vital part of the whole enterprise, it is also important that it is organized so nothing important is lost or mislaid. If your job is to manage the service desk for a business, here are a few tips to help you stay on top of that clutter and keep the company organized as well as your desk.

Everything Needs a Home
If you have a designated place for things that are always connected to your service desk, you will find it is easier to find them when you need them. While this may sound a bit obsessive, in the end you will find it makes your job that much easier. No more looking for the storage locker keys or your favorite pen while getting ready to run out for a meeting. No more shuffling papers to find a paperclip for that note you wrote. If you keep all basic supplies in a designated spot, you will soon find that you gain not only the time you would have spent looking for them but also a bit of peace of mind.

Labels Make it Easier
I have always found that labeling files, setting up a labeling structure and then sticking to it means I find what I want when I want it. It helps if you use a small easy to handle label maker that can sit in your desk when not being used. Best of all, when everything is labeled others who use the space can also find what they need quickly and easily. Shelves, files, containers, bins, baskets and everything else that holds anything should be clearly labeled, front and back, to ensure that label is always easy to read.

Take to Meeting Bin
Every office should have a folder or bin for that next meeting. As you go through your day or week, things that would be good for the next meeting can simply be tossed into the bin or folder. When it is time to head out to the meeting – presto! All those great ideas you had are here and ready to go.

Telephone Logs are Golden
It used to be that everyone used a telephone log because so much of our business was done via the phone. Nowadays we use the Internet so much that many of us have let this valuable tool fall to the wayside. If you keep a notepad next to the phone and jot down the time and basics of each call, you will find it invaluable for making sure you have a record of all your conversations in one handy place.

Professional Services Automation Tools
Of course, since we designed the EzPSA as a professional tool to help service businesses stay organized, you can bet we think it is the best tool of all for you. At the service desk you can use it to keep track of client requests, check on the status of current jobs, or even handle purchase orders and client invoices. No matter what size your business is, from a two person office to a world-wide enterprise, if you are in the service business using a handy PSA like our own EzPSA just makes it that much easier to stay organized.

Marketing 101: Do You Have a Winning Name?

Marketing 101: Do You Have a Winning Name?
One of the most important marketing decisions you will ever make is the name of your company or product. It is also often the thing we spend the least amount of time considering. It will be the one thing that identifies your business, quickly tells potential clients if they should consider your goods or services and if it is memorable, will recommend you to others. But how does anyone find just the right name? It turns out; there are some tried and true considerations for business names just as there are with baby names. Since this company is your baby, let's look at a few things you should consider when naming that new business.

Trying Out the Basics
The name of your company drives how potential clients see your business. Here are a handful of approaches you can try that have been very successful for businesses in the past.


  • Using the Founder's Name – This worked great for Hewlett-Packard and Bell Telephone. It is more common these days in lawyers firms, accountant firms or any kind of business where personal integrity is an important part of the business presentation.
  • A Description of What You Do or Offer – A great example of this is Southwest Airlines. Sometimes it needs tweaking. An example is Western Hotel which changed its name to Western International when it expanded and now is simply called West-in.
  • Use the Experience or Image of Your Product – This can be harder but Sprint is a good example of this. It can be tongue in cheek, like Mail Chimp which implies even a monkey can use their product.
  • Go for Broke and Take a Word Completely Out of Context – Apple is of course the great example of this, but there are others. The trick with this is to pick a word so unrelated that it will come to be connected only with your product or company.
  • Make Up Your Own Name – You see this far more these days with online businesses. Of course, the prime example of this is Google, which has now become a verb relating to the company.


Considering Your Target
You also need to consider the audience you want to appeal to with your company. Once you have decided on the type of approach, here are some questions to help you narrow your options when it comes to your target market:


  • Who is your target audience and what problems are you solving for them?
  • What are the benefits you can offer this audience and what kinds of words best describe these?
  • List your five largest competitors and then list how you differ from them Now that you have those answers you should have created a list of at least 7-10 names you think might work.


Can you pronounce them easily? Are they easy to spell and understand? How do they look written out?

The Best Laid Plans
Of course, you can do all of these things and still find that your name doesn't say quite what you intended. That is where it is always a good idea to try out several options on friends and neighbors first. A good example of this is right here at EzPSA. We knew what we wanted to say with our name. It is as easy as could be to use our Professional Services Automation software. But then we heard recently that PSA has another meaning (or three!). It was pointed out that a PSA is also a "prostate-specific antigen" test that any man over 40 should have on a regular basis to test for prostate cancer. As you can imagine, having an "easy" PSA test is probably an oxymoron in medicine. A quick check in Google shows that a PSA is also


  • A "professional sports Authenticator" in the world of sports card collecting
  • A "provincial specialist association" in Canada, such as for teachers
  • A "property sports association" such as the PSA World Cup for Soccer
  • A professional association called the "Photographic Society of America"


Of course, I don't really think that our own software company EzPSA will be confused with any of these organizations, but it never hurts to check these things out first! So take some time when planning that new product name or company. As your business grows, that name will grow with you. While you want to take these ideas into consideration, don't let that stop you from moving forward and finding the best possible name for your new venture.

Using EzPSA Technology for Better Customer Service

Using EzPSA Technology for Better Customer Service
Great customer service is more than just answering the phone or tracking down orders. To really deliver great customer service you need two things: smart informative employees that are well-trained and the right technology to help them deliver exceptional customer service. But what if you could bring your level of customer service up a notch and make it anticipatory customer service that can help your customers by anticipating their unexpressed desires? That is how the Ritz-Carlton explains its top of the line customer service, and you can do it too.

Creating that Emotional Customer Commitment
When you deliver customer service that anticipates your customer needs, you move your company out of the acceptable business experience into the kind of experience that creates real loyalty. It is easy to see why, once you look closely at what they need you to deliver. We aren't talking about spam here but real customer service that understands customer needs and anticipates them for them. Keep in mind that although having the right technology can help you to deliver this exceptional service, it is only part of the equation. Great people and top notch training combine to make this an unbeatable way to keep customers coming back again and again. When your customers see that you anticipate every roadblock for them, they can relax and leave it all in your hands. This is the kind of service anyone would come back for, and you can deliver it with the right mindset and the technology to deliver it. Here are just a few examples.

Delays in Service – The moment it is obvious that something has happened that can delay a service being delivered, a part being shipped or an event taking place as anticipated, let them know. If you offer travel services and a flight is delayed, offer to rebook and give them options. If that order needed to be in time for the holidays and it might not happen, tell them the instant you know.

Keeping Track – Some services happen regularly, such as delivering prescriptions or handling mortgages. If you have a business that has this kind of cyclical service, why not do the basic steps to ensure there are no delays? My Internet provider recently sent a notice they were changing their billing cycle to give customers more time to review the bill, which they send out reminders for via email. They now would send those notices two weeks in advance of billing instead of just a few days before. This is responsive and thoughtful.

Keeping the Human Touch
While using technology, such as your EzPSA system, can be a big part of organizing the information that helps you deliver anticipatory customer service, remember that in the end it always comes down to the human touch. Always give your customer a way to talk to a real live human being when sending out notices of changes or updates. Salespeople sweat blood for human contacts so always give your customer a human alternative to a tech solution when a problem pops up.

Even if you are using your PSA technology to contact them, they should always have the option to talk to a person. We developed our EzPSA system to help business stay in touch with their customers and serve them better. Taking the next logical step and making that customer service become an anticipatory service is just one more way you can use technology to deliver the best service possible and in turn have customers who wouldn't think of doing business with anyone else.