No matter how brilliant a business idea, inevitably, the greatest challenge to building a successful business is finding the right employees to run it.
Talk to any level of business owner, whether seasoned or just starting out, and most will agree that hiring effective team members can make or break a business.
For entrepreneurs, hiring can be particularly challenging. When you are building an organization from scratch on a shoestring budget with tightly competing priorities, finding the right teammates may seem as likely as winning the lottery.
Despite the multitude of online platforms that streamline the hiring process, hiring as we know it is still broken. Finding that perfect employee is critical but the process is very time-consuming – from creating a job description, screening candidates, rounds of interviews and checking references – and time is an entrepreneur’s most precious commodity. Once you have narrowed it down to the right candidate and negotiated terms, developing and implementing a thorough training (while imperative) is labor-intensive.
Of course, supervising a new employee requires hours of dedication, coaching, and support, as well as quality control. And despite your best efforts, results still may vary. Some employees will still leave after you’ve invested in building them up.
Our company faced these hurdles too, but then we found a way to make it work for ourselves that was so successful we made it our core offering going forward. Enter Wing Assistant. What makes Wing Assistant different? Wing leverages technology and combines it with irreplaceable human capabilities, resulting in a superior customer experience as a remote labor supplier.
Wing alleviates an entrepreneur’s main employment challenges by addressing the trifecta of finance, time, and quality control constraints. Our business model is similar to hiring a human resources team, training department, on-going supervisor, and quality assurance division in one 45 minute interview, for a low monthly subscription fee and based on your needs. With Wing’s AI technology, a business owner can ensure ongoing employee and output quality without applying the intense time or micromanagement often required otherwise.
In a typical employment setting, a manager would be hard-pressed to monitor the minute details of their employees’ interactions – and even if they had the time or tools to do so, that level of micro-management would create an overwhelmingly stressful work environment. Wing’s tech team developed a proprietary algorithm that identifies quality control concerns during interactions between the customers and their virtual assistants. The concerns are documented and rated and Wing flags the issues for the quality control team and supervisors. Supervisors can address the concerns in real time with the virtual assistants, providing instant feedback and corrective action plans for improved output. Studies show that lack of trust at work are a serious issue and will likely result in high turnover rates (and an article from Entrepreneur.com uncovered a link between micromanagement and higher employee mortality rates).
Wing understands the value of human interaction, even as technology tremendously speeds up identifying quality issues. If virtual assistants were simply informed of their errors by a chatbot, there would be no opportunities for learning or even discussion. However, occasionally the algorithm over-identifies issues that the virtual assistant is able to explain. Supervisors are trained to instruct, coach, and support their virtual assistants to ensure they understand and continue to improve in their roles. With Wing, AI plus personalized review and supervision create a highly effective solution for employers.
Wing’s advances have turned hiring for the better. With a low overhead cost and a team dedicated to producing quality results, entrepreneurs can focus on the elements of their business that only they can spearhead, helping them to head towards exceptional growth.
About the Author
Diane Meehan is currently the Head of Customer Success at Wing, where she recently joined after several years guiding mom entrepreneurs toward their business goals as the Director of Customer Success at Pepperlane. Previously, she was consistently ranked in the top 5% of Paint Nite licensees across the country and grew her social painting business to over
$6 million in sales in less than 5 years. As a mom to three daughters, she is particularly skilled in time management, organization, and eye-roll interpretation.
