virtual personal assistant

Nine Step Guide For Creating Effective Landing Pages

You create landing pages either for products that are tangible such as electronic items, tyres or cars OR a service, that is intangible in nature such as home maintenance, a teaching course OR a combination of both products and services. But few things remain the same when it comes to creating an excellent and effective landing page. We,at GetFriday, have years of experience in creating landing pages through personal experimentation, creativity and, data-based analysis. We have put together important pointers for you to work with and follow whenever you are creating a landing page. Given below is the step-by-step guide to create an effective landing page. Step 1: Optimize Your Landing Page For The Keywords There are 3 main ways through which a company can try to reach out to their target audience – Search Ads (on Google or any other search media) Display Ads (on Google, social media sites or print media), and Mailers (direct mails to list of prospect clients) Keyword optimization on a landing page is particularly important when you are spending on search ads. Every search ad is targeted toward a particular set of keywords that are relevant to the product or service you are offering. Search ad descriptions should contain that particular keyword for high quality score of the ads (so that you would pay less per click). Also, the keywords targeted for the ads must be present on the landing page to increase the relevancy and churn out a high quality score. Descriptions of the product or services should contain the keywords targeted for the search ads. This will help decrease the cost of running such search ads and also, increase the rank of your ads when compared to the ads of competitors. You should always keep searching for new keywords and eliminate those keywords (that are not necessary) on a regular basis for better results. The new, targeted keywords should also be mentioned in the landing page for better relevancy. Suppose you are running an e-store for footwear and you want to target the keyword “Puma running shoes”. The landing page created for the this particular keyword, where the visitor is directed to after clicking on the ad should ideally have ‘Puma running shoes’ listings and should include the keyword, “running shoes” in the description as well. Step 2: Invest Time In Design Of Your Landing Page Display ads and mailers that are used to reach out to your target audience include visuals and graphics. You can select a theme with different color combinations, images, and dabble with the appearance of your landing page, depending on the concept. Just make sure that your landing page has a similar theme to the ones used in you display ads and mailers. This will help visitors in connecting with the brand as they would have already seen the display of your landing page on the ad or the mailer. If the visuals on the landing page are not appropriate or don’t go with the theme, visitors could get confused and might find website navigation cumbersome. Step 3: Educate Your Audience About Your Offering Don’t just start selling your product or service from the first sentence on your landing page. On the first slider or home screen, educate your audience about your product or service. Use images and visuals to illustrate your offerings. Explain in detail about how your offerings can help the visitors in their businesses or personal lives. If you are selling a product, reserve a section on the page to explain how your product works and what it entails. Provide a description with clear images and videos. Let the visitors understand your product before investing in it. Keep the language simple, so that your content can be understood even by a layman. If you are a service provider, explain to your visitors what they are going to get out of this relationship. Let them get a feel of your services on the landing page itself. If there is a video tutorial about how your product or service works, include the video or the display description in the “How It Works”section. Step 4: Give Importance To Testimonials You can try convincing just about everyone who visits your e-store to buy your product or try out your services, but in the end, word of mouth promotions always play the final and the most important role in a consumer’s decision making process. The stronger the word of mouth, the higher the chances of getting more customers. Therefore, it is important that you give client testimonials the attention that they truly deserve. If you don’t have good testimonials to show to your prospects on the landing page, you are losing out on credibility. Invest some time on collecting good and convincing testimonials from your happy and loyal customers. Display your testimonials in a manner that is both, readable and understandable. Step 5: Attract With Call Of Action Buttons Your ‘call of action’ buttons will differ according to your offerings. If you are an e-commerce website, your call of action button would be “Buy Now” or “Move to Cart”. If you are a service provider like SAS or Cloud services that needs to be subscribed to every month, your call of action button would be “Apply Now” or “Sign Up“. These ‘call of action’ buttons should be placed prominently on your page to attract your target audience. Taking these steps will only ensure that you close the deal faster by converting your prospects into ‘clients’. Pay special attention to this. You are spending huge sums of money to draw prospects onto your landing page. Treat your landing page like a store wherein you have to convince every visitor to buy your product and wield your power to convince the visitor to press the ‘call of action’ button. This concept was very appropriately explained by Alec Baldwin in his famous speech “Always Be Closing”, in the movie, “Glengarry Glen Ross”. Of course, the speech was focused on product sales

Nine Step Guide For Creating Effective Landing Pages Read More »

You create landing pages either for products that are tangible such as electronic items, tyres or cars OR a service, that is intangible in nature such as home maintenance, a teaching course OR a combination of both products and services. But few things remain the same when it comes to creating an excellent and effective landing page. We,at GetFriday, have years of experience in creating landing pages through personal experimentation, creativity and, data-based analysis. We have put together important pointers for you to work with and follow whenever you are creating a landing page. Given below is the step-by-step guide to create an effective landing page. Step 1: Optimize Your Landing Page For The Keywords There are 3 main ways through which a company can try to reach out to their target audience – Search Ads (on Google or any other search media) Display Ads (on Google, social media sites or print media), and Mailers (direct mails to list of prospect clients) Keyword optimization on a landing page is particularly important when you are spending on search ads. Every search ad is targeted toward a particular set of keywords that are relevant to the product or service you are offering. Search ad descriptions should contain that particular keyword for high quality score of the ads (so that you would pay less per click). Also, the keywords targeted for the ads must be present on the landing page to increase the relevancy and churn out a high quality score. Descriptions of the product or services should contain the keywords targeted for the search ads. This will help decrease the cost of running such search ads and also, increase the rank of your ads when compared to the ads of competitors. You should always keep searching for new keywords and eliminate those keywords (that are not necessary) on a regular basis for better results. The new, targeted keywords should also be mentioned in the landing page for better relevancy. Suppose you are running an e-store for footwear and you want to target the keyword “Puma running shoes”. The landing page created for the this particular keyword, where the visitor is directed to after clicking on the ad should ideally have ‘Puma running shoes’ listings and should include the keyword, “running shoes” in the description as well. Step 2: Invest Time In Design Of Your Landing Page Display ads and mailers that are used to reach out to your target audience include visuals and graphics. You can select a theme with different color combinations, images, and dabble with the appearance of your landing page, depending on the concept. Just make sure that your landing page has a similar theme to the ones used in you display ads and mailers. This will help visitors in connecting with the brand as they would have already seen the display of your landing page on the ad or the mailer. If the visuals on the landing page are not appropriate or don’t go with the theme, visitors could get confused and might find website navigation cumbersome. Step 3: Educate Your Audience About Your Offering Don’t just start selling your product or service from the first sentence on your landing page. On the first slider or home screen, educate your audience about your product or service. Use images and visuals to illustrate your offerings. Explain in detail about how your offerings can help the visitors in their businesses or personal lives. If you are selling a product, reserve a section on the page to explain how your product works and what it entails. Provide a description with clear images and videos. Let the visitors understand your product before investing in it. Keep the language simple, so that your content can be understood even by a layman. If you are a service provider, explain to your visitors what they are going to get out of this relationship. Let them get a feel of your services on the landing page itself. If there is a video tutorial about how your product or service works, include the video or the display description in the “How It Works”section. Step 4: Give Importance To Testimonials You can try convincing just about everyone who visits your e-store to buy your product or try out your services, but in the end, word of mouth promotions always play the final and the most important role in a consumer’s decision making process. The stronger the word of mouth, the higher the chances of getting more customers. Therefore, it is important that you give client testimonials the attention that they truly deserve. If you don’t have good testimonials to show to your prospects on the landing page, you are losing out on credibility. Invest some time on collecting good and convincing testimonials from your happy and loyal customers. Display your testimonials in a manner that is both, readable and understandable. Step 5: Attract With Call Of Action Buttons Your ‘call of action’ buttons will differ according to your offerings. If you are an e-commerce website, your call of action button would be “Buy Now” or “Move to Cart”. If you are a service provider like SAS or Cloud services that needs to be subscribed to every month, your call of action button would be “Apply Now” or “Sign Up“. These ‘call of action’ buttons should be placed prominently on your page to attract your target audience. Taking these steps will only ensure that you close the deal faster by converting your prospects into ‘clients’. Pay special attention to this. You are spending huge sums of money to draw prospects onto your landing page. Treat your landing page like a store wherein you have to convince every visitor to buy your product and wield your power to convince the visitor to press the ‘call of action’ button. This concept was very appropriately explained by Alec Baldwin in his famous speech “Always Be Closing”, in the movie, “Glengarry Glen Ross”. Of course, the speech was focused on product sales

GetFriday Newsletter – E-Commerce Insights

Industry News: E-Commerce Insights GetFriday has begun its monthly endeavors of providing you with information that could be of use to you. We aim to impart important insights to our clients to help them promote and help e-commerce stores grow. At GetFriday, we have had diverse experiences with our clients, most of them largely E-Commerce clients. The year 2015 is packed with a number of changes and prevalent trends in the E-commerce industry. Industry players need to now understand and adopt these changes in order to be able procure revenue and attract traffic. Some of the top trends for the E-Commerce industry for this year are highlighted below and are as follows:- Sales are now being effectively carried out over mobile phones. A recent survey shows that mobile now “account for 50.3% of all E-Commerce Traffic”. Also, the new Google algorithm change that requires websites to be mobile-friendly should be well in place for E-commerce websites by now in order for a better ranking on search engine sites in order to attract traffic. Social media sites are now turning into lucrative platforms for driving sales to e-commerce websites. A lot of consumers are now turning to Pinterest, Polyvore, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to ‘discover’ new, prevalent e-commerce products and to Twitter for specialty/niche industries. Setting up Facebook stores are also becoming a popular trend, helping E-commerce websites directly on the platform through a trusted and secure payment gateway. Social commerce has been viewed as one of the most important e-commerce trends for the year and funnels a large part of website viewership and traffic. But if generating traffic was not enough, Facebook tops the list as the social media site that brings in the highest conversion rate for e-commerce traffic at 1.85%. People shop whenever it is convenient for them during the day or night and don’t necessarily use the desktop or the laptop to surf e-commerce websites. People shop or go through e-commerce websites on the move, during the day, before they go to bed at night and even between the periods 12-2PM at the work place and on Sunday Evenings. This is a proven statistic. E-commerce websites should take a note of this and if you are PPC advertiser, this could work as a model for you to be able to place your ad campaigns effectively. These have been some of the top trends for 2015. There will be more updates and more newsletters on what’s fresh and what’s doing the rounds in the e-commerce industry. Stay tuned for the latest postings, tips, offerings and blogs specific to the e-commerce industry in the next issue and follows us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn as well.

GetFriday Newsletter – E-Commerce Insights Read More »

Industry News: E-Commerce Insights GetFriday has begun its monthly endeavors of providing you with information that could be of use to you. We aim to impart important insights to our clients to help them promote and help e-commerce stores grow. At GetFriday, we have had diverse experiences with our clients, most of them largely E-Commerce clients. The year 2015 is packed with a number of changes and prevalent trends in the E-commerce industry. Industry players need to now understand and adopt these changes in order to be able procure revenue and attract traffic. Some of the top trends for the E-Commerce industry for this year are highlighted below and are as follows:- Sales are now being effectively carried out over mobile phones. A recent survey shows that mobile now “account for 50.3% of all E-Commerce Traffic”. Also, the new Google algorithm change that requires websites to be mobile-friendly should be well in place for E-commerce websites by now in order for a better ranking on search engine sites in order to attract traffic. Social media sites are now turning into lucrative platforms for driving sales to e-commerce websites. A lot of consumers are now turning to Pinterest, Polyvore, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to ‘discover’ new, prevalent e-commerce products and to Twitter for specialty/niche industries. Setting up Facebook stores are also becoming a popular trend, helping E-commerce websites directly on the platform through a trusted and secure payment gateway. Social commerce has been viewed as one of the most important e-commerce trends for the year and funnels a large part of website viewership and traffic. But if generating traffic was not enough, Facebook tops the list as the social media site that brings in the highest conversion rate for e-commerce traffic at 1.85%. People shop whenever it is convenient for them during the day or night and don’t necessarily use the desktop or the laptop to surf e-commerce websites. People shop or go through e-commerce websites on the move, during the day, before they go to bed at night and even between the periods 12-2PM at the work place and on Sunday Evenings. This is a proven statistic. E-commerce websites should take a note of this and if you are PPC advertiser, this could work as a model for you to be able to place your ad campaigns effectively. These have been some of the top trends for 2015. There will be more updates and more newsletters on what’s fresh and what’s doing the rounds in the e-commerce industry. Stay tuned for the latest postings, tips, offerings and blogs specific to the e-commerce industry in the next issue and follows us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn as well.

GetFriday Newsletter – Get Friday and Social Media

With GetFriday stepping into its 10th year of operations, we would like to take the opportunity to firstly, offer our sincerest thanks and gratitude to every client who has supported us in our endeavors along the way. Without your conviction and belief, it would have been impossible for GetFriday to achieve the kind of success it has. We have spread our wings through social media marketing and have built our presence on a number of popular social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+. Through this, we aim to help clients discover our latest postings whilst also providing exciting opportunities to avail the best of GetFriday’s virtual assistance services. A series of social media campaigns will be launched on a monthly basis for this special year and clients, both old and new, will be chosen as the recipients of tremendous benefits. A recent ‘Friendship Day’ campaign was launched on the official GetFriday social media pages on July 27th, 2015. The campaign was primarily targeted at clients who had availed GetFriday’s services and to help clients’ friends avail the same, by gifting them GetFriday hours, along with submitting a special tweet, a shout-out or a personalized message for Friendship Day. The result of the campaign was nothing short of a grand success, wit the existing clients also receiving exciting, referral benefits. Similarly, GetFriday ran an exciting “World Entrepreneurs Day” campaign from the 17th-21st August. The prime motive behind launching such an exclusive campaign was to celebrate entrepreneurs and their contributions around the world. As many of our clients are businesspersons themselves, we offered them $25 as cash prizes and also a complementary offer wherein the clients referrals earned 25% off on the first month’s bill if they signed up during the offer period. The campaign proved to be fruitful and gave the golden opportunity to clients to earn exciting prizes and benefits and also gave GetFriday a chance to welcome new clients into the GetFriday family. More such campaigns will be launched across GetFriday’s official pages. Stay tuned and follow us on our social media sites for latest offerings, blogs and news. Not only will you be able to view the latest internal news, but you will also be able to benefit from the fresh, quality content posted for professionals and entrepreneurs across various domains and industries on a weekly basis. We love to hear from you and we bet you would love to hear from us too! Let’s stay connected.

GetFriday Newsletter – Get Friday and Social Media Read More »

With GetFriday stepping into its 10th year of operations, we would like to take the opportunity to firstly, offer our sincerest thanks and gratitude to every client who has supported us in our endeavors along the way. Without your conviction and belief, it would have been impossible for GetFriday to achieve the kind of success it has. We have spread our wings through social media marketing and have built our presence on a number of popular social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+. Through this, we aim to help clients discover our latest postings whilst also providing exciting opportunities to avail the best of GetFriday’s virtual assistance services. A series of social media campaigns will be launched on a monthly basis for this special year and clients, both old and new, will be chosen as the recipients of tremendous benefits. A recent ‘Friendship Day’ campaign was launched on the official GetFriday social media pages on July 27th, 2015. The campaign was primarily targeted at clients who had availed GetFriday’s services and to help clients’ friends avail the same, by gifting them GetFriday hours, along with submitting a special tweet, a shout-out or a personalized message for Friendship Day. The result of the campaign was nothing short of a grand success, wit the existing clients also receiving exciting, referral benefits. Similarly, GetFriday ran an exciting “World Entrepreneurs Day” campaign from the 17th-21st August. The prime motive behind launching such an exclusive campaign was to celebrate entrepreneurs and their contributions around the world. As many of our clients are businesspersons themselves, we offered them $25 as cash prizes and also a complementary offer wherein the clients referrals earned 25% off on the first month’s bill if they signed up during the offer period. The campaign proved to be fruitful and gave the golden opportunity to clients to earn exciting prizes and benefits and also gave GetFriday a chance to welcome new clients into the GetFriday family. More such campaigns will be launched across GetFriday’s official pages. Stay tuned and follow us on our social media sites for latest offerings, blogs and news. Not only will you be able to view the latest internal news, but you will also be able to benefit from the fresh, quality content posted for professionals and entrepreneurs across various domains and industries on a weekly basis. We love to hear from you and we bet you would love to hear from us too! Let’s stay connected.

GetFriday Newsletter – GetFriday Turns 10!

GetFriday completed it 10 years of existence in the Virtual Assistance Industry in August 2015. This is a huge milestone to achieve for us and on this joyful occasion of turning 10; Team Get Friday would like to thank you all. You are the clients believing in our abilities and supporting us for very long time; we owe it all to our clients and the strong bonds we have fostered through time. Through the course of these 10 years, GetFriday has seen its share of ups and downs, but thankfully, we have had more ups than downs. For 10 years, GetFriday has helped offload tasks for more than 13,000 clients around 60 countries with its personal virtual assistance services. A lot has changed and we are now slowly evolving to be a business support service from virtual assistance support. The competition has been tough. Many of our competitors have disappeared and others are stuck in middle age blues. Our steadfast focus on learning from our customers has enabled us to survive and flourish for a decade now. We believe, GetFriday has gone on to bring about a positive change in the lives of all its clients, no matter how small or big the task outsourced. During a time when personal virtual assistance services were literally unheard of, GetFriday sprang up in 2005 as the sister concern of YMII (Your Man In India) and began offering personal, administrative, secretarial and specialized services to clients, virtually. The success of our venture, which began way back in 2005, was featured and documented in the best-selling book, “4 Hour Work Week” authored by Tim Ferris, in 2007. Within just a span of 2 years, GetFriday achieved so success and acclaim and carved its place as an indomitable player in the market of virtual assistance services. As a celebration of our successful 10-year run and for having been associated with us during our incredible journey, we are going to run a year-long campaign with oodles of benefits and exciting offers for our wide client-base.

GetFriday Newsletter – GetFriday Turns 10! Read More »

GetFriday completed it 10 years of existence in the Virtual Assistance Industry in August 2015. This is a huge milestone to achieve for us and on this joyful occasion of turning 10; Team Get Friday would like to thank you all. You are the clients believing in our abilities and supporting us for very long time; we owe it all to our clients and the strong bonds we have fostered through time. Through the course of these 10 years, GetFriday has seen its share of ups and downs, but thankfully, we have had more ups than downs. For 10 years, GetFriday has helped offload tasks for more than 13,000 clients around 60 countries with its personal virtual assistance services. A lot has changed and we are now slowly evolving to be a business support service from virtual assistance support. The competition has been tough. Many of our competitors have disappeared and others are stuck in middle age blues. Our steadfast focus on learning from our customers has enabled us to survive and flourish for a decade now. We believe, GetFriday has gone on to bring about a positive change in the lives of all its clients, no matter how small or big the task outsourced. During a time when personal virtual assistance services were literally unheard of, GetFriday sprang up in 2005 as the sister concern of YMII (Your Man In India) and began offering personal, administrative, secretarial and specialized services to clients, virtually. The success of our venture, which began way back in 2005, was featured and documented in the best-selling book, “4 Hour Work Week” authored by Tim Ferris, in 2007. Within just a span of 2 years, GetFriday achieved so success and acclaim and carved its place as an indomitable player in the market of virtual assistance services. As a celebration of our successful 10-year run and for having been associated with us during our incredible journey, we are going to run a year-long campaign with oodles of benefits and exciting offers for our wide client-base.

AJ Jacobs

Serendipity; Chance favors the prepared mind

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” That was a quote from the French microbiologist, chemist and inventor, Louis Pasteur. Incidentally, he was a master of experimental research. Being not so interested in theory, he made many fundamental discoveries just by careful observation. Serendipity; A word coined by Sir Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford in the 1700s to denote ‘accidental discoveries‘. Walpole was a prolific letter writer. In one of his letters to a friend, Walpole wrote about a silly fairy tale called ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’; “… as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of” (Serendip, old name for Ceylon, Sri Lanka) that had made a profound impression on his life. The tale described the fate of three princes who left their home to travel through the world. Rarely they found the treasures they were looking for but ran into other ones equally great or even greater which they were not seeking. Interesting, ‘yes’ but you may wonder what is the context here? The point am trying to make is that Get Friday(Sister Concern of YMII) was also a stroke of serendipity, something that happened by chance. But did happen because we had cultivated a mind that was prepared. A mind that was open to ideas that had never been tried before. Let me tell you the story so that you can understand what I mean: Before 2005, this company was only in the business of providing concierge services in India to Indian expats living overseas. Basically running errands for them and helping them manage their responsibilities and matters back home. That service went by the name ‘Your Man In India(YMII)’. Was a one of a kind pioneering service in those times and hence received a lot of media attention. (free publicity!!! chance was definitely helping us big time) On 17 May, 2005 quite fortuitously I must add, we (Prabhu, my colleague and me) received a mail from a gentleman in NY. His name was AJ Jacobs. Luckily I was able to retrieve the exact mail we received. Here it goes: Dear Mr. Prabhu and Mr. Sunder I heard about your company from a friend of mine who is an Indian businessman living in California. I’m a writer for an American magazine called ESQUIRE. It’s an upscale magazine targeted at businessmen, and reaches 2 million readers. It’s been around for 70 years. (If you want to know more, it’s at esquire.com). I’m writing an article for Esquire for which I’d love to hire Your Man in India(YMII). The idea is this: To hire a talented person or talented people in India to take care of as many of my life tasks as possible. Almost like a remote executive assistant. For instance, I’d love someone to help make airline reservations over the Internet. Or make restaurant reservations. Or pay my bills online. I’d even be interested in having someone answer my emails for me. Of course, I would give your company credit in the article. The publicity would, I imagine, be excellent for your business. And naturally, Esquire would pay the going rate for your services. I understand that the core of your business is doing such tasks for residents of India (e.g. buying movie tickets for Indian movie theaters). But since so much can be accomplished via the Internet, I thought that you might be able to help me with US-based tasks as well. I hope you like the idea. I think it will make an educational and entertaining article. Please let me know your thoughts. I can be reached via email here, or by cell phone. Thanks in advance, A.J. Jacobs ———— We were kind of zapped by the request and were trying to figure out if this was some kind of a practical joke. More so because we realized later that Jacobs wanted to outsource a lot more than the quite innocuous sounding things, he mentioned in his first mail. He wanted to outsource his personal life to a company in India. That was a whole lot tricky. Back in 2005, it could have been an idea that naturally gets shot down because no one had attempted it before. So why should we even try! Thankfully, we decided to pursue it. It all started with just one employee to boot and this person helped Jacobs over the next couple of months. Despite the odd slip ups here and there, largely due to cultural differences the experiment was a huge success. AJ’s Esquire article came out in September 2005. It went to capture the imagination of the American press and we were on Good Morning America, the next day. You can access this article here. http://www.esquire.com/ESQ0905OUTSOURCING_214. That is when we decided that we just couldn’t let this opportunity go. There was a potential and we were in the right place, at the right time. So we created a separate division and went out with a new brand called ‘Get Friday‘. (inspired by Man Friday from the Robinson Crusoe novel). There, of course would be a question in everyone’s mind. If the character, Man Friday inspired this name then why was it not called by the same name. Why Get Friday?. We weighed the pros and cons of gender bias in a brand name that was to go international. Especially, since we envisioned many girl fridays helping clients across the world. These things weighed in to settle the matter in favor of a gender-neutral ‘Get Friday‘. That led me to believe that a lot of things do happen by chance, but provided it encounters a prepared mind. And that pretty much has been the cornerstone of our innovation philosophy, to this day. I hope you like this little story of how it all began. Sunder P CEO

Serendipity; Chance favors the prepared mind Read More »

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” That was a quote from the French microbiologist, chemist and inventor, Louis Pasteur. Incidentally, he was a master of experimental research. Being not so interested in theory, he made many fundamental discoveries just by careful observation. Serendipity; A word coined by Sir Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford in the 1700s to denote ‘accidental discoveries‘. Walpole was a prolific letter writer. In one of his letters to a friend, Walpole wrote about a silly fairy tale called ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’; “… as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of” (Serendip, old name for Ceylon, Sri Lanka) that had made a profound impression on his life. The tale described the fate of three princes who left their home to travel through the world. Rarely they found the treasures they were looking for but ran into other ones equally great or even greater which they were not seeking. Interesting, ‘yes’ but you may wonder what is the context here? The point am trying to make is that Get Friday(Sister Concern of YMII) was also a stroke of serendipity, something that happened by chance. But did happen because we had cultivated a mind that was prepared. A mind that was open to ideas that had never been tried before. Let me tell you the story so that you can understand what I mean: Before 2005, this company was only in the business of providing concierge services in India to Indian expats living overseas. Basically running errands for them and helping them manage their responsibilities and matters back home. That service went by the name ‘Your Man In India(YMII)’. Was a one of a kind pioneering service in those times and hence received a lot of media attention. (free publicity!!! chance was definitely helping us big time) On 17 May, 2005 quite fortuitously I must add, we (Prabhu, my colleague and me) received a mail from a gentleman in NY. His name was AJ Jacobs. Luckily I was able to retrieve the exact mail we received. Here it goes: Dear Mr. Prabhu and Mr. Sunder I heard about your company from a friend of mine who is an Indian businessman living in California. I’m a writer for an American magazine called ESQUIRE. It’s an upscale magazine targeted at businessmen, and reaches 2 million readers. It’s been around for 70 years. (If you want to know more, it’s at esquire.com). I’m writing an article for Esquire for which I’d love to hire Your Man in India(YMII). The idea is this: To hire a talented person or talented people in India to take care of as many of my life tasks as possible. Almost like a remote executive assistant. For instance, I’d love someone to help make airline reservations over the Internet. Or make restaurant reservations. Or pay my bills online. I’d even be interested in having someone answer my emails for me. Of course, I would give your company credit in the article. The publicity would, I imagine, be excellent for your business. And naturally, Esquire would pay the going rate for your services. I understand that the core of your business is doing such tasks for residents of India (e.g. buying movie tickets for Indian movie theaters). But since so much can be accomplished via the Internet, I thought that you might be able to help me with US-based tasks as well. I hope you like the idea. I think it will make an educational and entertaining article. Please let me know your thoughts. I can be reached via email here, or by cell phone. Thanks in advance, A.J. Jacobs ———— We were kind of zapped by the request and were trying to figure out if this was some kind of a practical joke. More so because we realized later that Jacobs wanted to outsource a lot more than the quite innocuous sounding things, he mentioned in his first mail. He wanted to outsource his personal life to a company in India. That was a whole lot tricky. Back in 2005, it could have been an idea that naturally gets shot down because no one had attempted it before. So why should we even try! Thankfully, we decided to pursue it. It all started with just one employee to boot and this person helped Jacobs over the next couple of months. Despite the odd slip ups here and there, largely due to cultural differences the experiment was a huge success. AJ’s Esquire article came out in September 2005. It went to capture the imagination of the American press and we were on Good Morning America, the next day. You can access this article here. http://www.esquire.com/ESQ0905OUTSOURCING_214. That is when we decided that we just couldn’t let this opportunity go. There was a potential and we were in the right place, at the right time. So we created a separate division and went out with a new brand called ‘Get Friday‘. (inspired by Man Friday from the Robinson Crusoe novel). There, of course would be a question in everyone’s mind. If the character, Man Friday inspired this name then why was it not called by the same name. Why Get Friday?. We weighed the pros and cons of gender bias in a brand name that was to go international. Especially, since we envisioned many girl fridays helping clients across the world. These things weighed in to settle the matter in favor of a gender-neutral ‘Get Friday‘. That led me to believe that a lot of things do happen by chance, but provided it encounters a prepared mind. And that pretty much has been the cornerstone of our innovation philosophy, to this day. I hope you like this little story of how it all began. Sunder P CEO

Midhya, our VA with Jerry Hobby

Where Good Ideas come from?

Borrowing from the title of the popular book by Steven Johnson, here is an example of how ideas connect and how people benefit from it. We had posted Andrew Wilson’s virtual assistance social experiment in our previous blog posts. This is a reply from another client, Ryan Leon after reading his post. Re: The Virtual Assistance project New post by Ryan Leon » Sat Apr 16, 2011 1:23 pm I would like to begin by commending Andrew Norman Wilson on the Virtual Assistance Project. I was, for lack of a better term, mind-blown after reading his posts and watching the videos on his blog. I have to admit, that I started an account at Get Friday to make my life a little easier. After seeing Andrew’s approach, I’m a bit embarrassed by my lack of effort in getting to know my assistant, Midhya. Up to this point, my tasks have been purely business related, with some “easy” personal tasks such as ordering books on Amazon.com. Ever the positive spirit, Midhya is always eager to help and delivers great results. My eyes are now open to the fact that I have been missing out on a key value that Get Friday offers: Midhya’s input. My entire outlook has changed, and I owe it all to a creative student in Chicago. I would like to close my comment with a message to Mr. Wilson: Andrew, Thank you for sharing the Virtual Assistance Project with the world. As a 25-year old, I am constantly finding out that I have MUCH more to learn about life and my place in the global environment. You really have something here. I know that you will do great things, because you already have shifted the paradigm in my own mind. I am amazed at how the internet continues to evolve and connect people with ideas that would be lost on them otherwise. Keep up the good work. Your fan, Ryan Leon Thank you, Ryan for your unreserved appreciation of Andrew’s work. And my apologies for not asking you before making this post. Am presuming you would be happy to have it go public. And I thought his assistant should know about it as well. Midhya, keep the good work going! Pic of Midhya with Jerry Hobby, the CEO of Anything Internet and a regular guest on the CNN 650 Morning Show. We constantly learn from others ideas and experiments and that is how innovation happens. And it is more likely to happen much faster in a better-connected world. Watch this engrossing talk by Steven Johnson, spiced by some exquisite illustrative video animation. Happy viewing! Sunder P CEO

Where Good Ideas come from? Read More »

Borrowing from the title of the popular book by Steven Johnson, here is an example of how ideas connect and how people benefit from it. We had posted Andrew Wilson’s virtual assistance social experiment in our previous blog posts. This is a reply from another client, Ryan Leon after reading his post. Re: The Virtual Assistance project New post by Ryan Leon » Sat Apr 16, 2011 1:23 pm I would like to begin by commending Andrew Norman Wilson on the Virtual Assistance Project. I was, for lack of a better term, mind-blown after reading his posts and watching the videos on his blog. I have to admit, that I started an account at Get Friday to make my life a little easier. After seeing Andrew’s approach, I’m a bit embarrassed by my lack of effort in getting to know my assistant, Midhya. Up to this point, my tasks have been purely business related, with some “easy” personal tasks such as ordering books on Amazon.com. Ever the positive spirit, Midhya is always eager to help and delivers great results. My eyes are now open to the fact that I have been missing out on a key value that Get Friday offers: Midhya’s input. My entire outlook has changed, and I owe it all to a creative student in Chicago. I would like to close my comment with a message to Mr. Wilson: Andrew, Thank you for sharing the Virtual Assistance Project with the world. As a 25-year old, I am constantly finding out that I have MUCH more to learn about life and my place in the global environment. You really have something here. I know that you will do great things, because you already have shifted the paradigm in my own mind. I am amazed at how the internet continues to evolve and connect people with ideas that would be lost on them otherwise. Keep up the good work. Your fan, Ryan Leon Thank you, Ryan for your unreserved appreciation of Andrew’s work. And my apologies for not asking you before making this post. Am presuming you would be happy to have it go public. And I thought his assistant should know about it as well. Midhya, keep the good work going! Pic of Midhya with Jerry Hobby, the CEO of Anything Internet and a regular guest on the CNN 650 Morning Show. We constantly learn from others ideas and experiments and that is how innovation happens. And it is more likely to happen much faster in a better-connected world. Watch this engrossing talk by Steven Johnson, spiced by some exquisite illustrative video animation. Happy viewing! Sunder P CEO

An Unusual Request

This unusual request came in from a client on the Euro Zone, some time back (Dec-2010). Bouquets and brickbats from clients are part of everyday life in the services business. But appreciation that is thoughtful would go a long way to positively motivate employees or just about anyone. Pradeep, the team lead on the Euro shift at that point of time received this request from a client, Kevin. Rini is her assistant. Read on… Hello Pradeep, As my usage has changed I will move to a pay as you go plan shortly. Before this happens I expect to have some un used time on my current plan. I believe there will be 2-3 hours left on the 14 of December. Given the exceptional help that Rini has provided I wonder would it be possible to use my unused time to allow Rini to leave for home early one day as a thank you to her for all her help ? Given I will have paid for her time I am hoping this unusual request is possible please ? Thanks and regards Kevin So simple a request, but so very thoughtful. The client thought it would be so nice to let Rini go early for a day, while having already paid for those hours. Did we have a choice with such a request? Nope, we just happily obliged. Incidentally, Rini has a young child at home and she was mighty happy with this wonderful gesture. Thank you, Kevin. You made her day! It is simple things that can make a huge difference in people’s lives and the way they perceive it. On a different note but on the same topic. Here is a RSA video I love, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk titled ‘The surprising truth about motivates people’. Happy viewing!! Sunder P CEO

An Unusual Request Read More »

This unusual request came in from a client on the Euro Zone, some time back (Dec-2010). Bouquets and brickbats from clients are part of everyday life in the services business. But appreciation that is thoughtful would go a long way to positively motivate employees or just about anyone. Pradeep, the team lead on the Euro shift at that point of time received this request from a client, Kevin. Rini is her assistant. Read on… Hello Pradeep, As my usage has changed I will move to a pay as you go plan shortly. Before this happens I expect to have some un used time on my current plan. I believe there will be 2-3 hours left on the 14 of December. Given the exceptional help that Rini has provided I wonder would it be possible to use my unused time to allow Rini to leave for home early one day as a thank you to her for all her help ? Given I will have paid for her time I am hoping this unusual request is possible please ? Thanks and regards Kevin So simple a request, but so very thoughtful. The client thought it would be so nice to let Rini go early for a day, while having already paid for those hours. Did we have a choice with such a request? Nope, we just happily obliged. Incidentally, Rini has a young child at home and she was mighty happy with this wonderful gesture. Thank you, Kevin. You made her day! It is simple things that can make a huge difference in people’s lives and the way they perceive it. On a different note but on the same topic. Here is a RSA video I love, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk titled ‘The surprising truth about motivates people’. Happy viewing!! Sunder P CEO

The Virtual Assistance Project – Social Experiment

On our invitation Andrew is posting his thoughts about the social experiment here on our blog. For more in-depth information on this project please read “Virtual Assistance: An Interview with Andrew Norman Wilson” in Media Fields Journal. Andrew talks about his project: I want to start this post by stating my belief that the critical dimensions of my project, which include this post, are articulated with the utmost respect for all the actors involved – Akhil, the other virtual assistants at GetFriday, and the Get Friday management. I want to be sure that this project is not understood as a way to blame or point fingers at individuals or the company as a whole. Setting the personal dimensions aside, this project is about an economy of informational labor that has inherited certain power relations from prior (though still simultaneous) forms of capitalism. In doing what I do I am not attempting to destroy or overthrow, but rather to question the relationships we take for granted or accept as inevitable every day by attempting to actually live the changes I would like to see. The people at GetFriday have been extremely open and helpful in allowing this to happen to a certain extent, and I doubt I would have found such openness at another virtual assistance service. As my artist statement for the project reads: The Virtual Assistance project began with research geared towards unpacking the relational system of GetFriday, a virtual personal assistant service based in Bangalore, India. Get Friday typically provides remote executive support, where a largely American client base is assigned a “virtual” personal assistant. I am a part of that client base, paying monthly fees for a primary assistant who works out of the Get Friday office in India. My “assistant” is a 25-year-old male Bangalore resident named Akhil. In paying for our relationship I am not trying to lighten my workload, but rather to attempt collaborative projects and even reversals of the normative outsourcing flow under a corporate contract arranged for one-way command. Using the service has been a method of engaging with, understanding, and reacting to an economy in order to learn, with the help of Akhil, how to peel back the corporate veneer, revealing limitations, histories, biographies, networks, power, desire, and more. Personal outsourcing initially came to my attention through the writings of proponents Thomas Friedman and Timothy Ferris as a method to shorten the typical American work week – to slough off excess labor onto globally integrated residents of developing countries. Global outsourcing tends to produce telematic relationships – telematic in the sense of a remote control over another’s labor. These conditions led to a number of questions about power relations that have been guiding me through the project. If power is defined as the ability to manipulate resources across space and time, to what extent can power in my relationship with Akhil and GetFriday be re-distributed amongst a service where the normative use is one-way command? How can this be reversed towards mutual assistance and collaboration? How can this relationship exceed the commodified forms intimacy and creativity privileged by service-based economies? The Get Friday service initially struck me as an opportunity for direct engagement with one of the dominant symbols of globalism—outsourced labor in India. GetFriday’s goal of “enhancing value to its clients” is consistent with the dominant use of outsourcing and its accompanying definition of value – profitability. Most people sign up for this service not to learn about their Indian assistants or to engage in a dynamic version of a pen pal relationship, but rather to outsource low-end tasks for a low price. However, profitability is not the fundamental horizon in which my project is formed. Profitability is a term of economic efficiency, and this is not an economically efficient relationship. In terms of social profitability, a much more efficient relationship would be to find the most “relevant” Indian gallery or artist willing to work with me, and try to make work about outsourcing. This project, while partially about outsourcing, more importantly uses outsourcing. The relationship-project is inherently problematic in a number of ways for me, and so the stakes are higher and the baggage is heavier. A crucial reorientation of my goals for the project came with my understandings of my contract with GetFriday. The power dynamics of the relationship are largely determined by the limitations put into play by the corporate contract and the accompanying forms of social engagement that are deemed acceptable by GetFriday management. I can’t have contact with Akhil outside of the official GetFriday communication channels, and all communication can be monitored by Akhil’s superiors. Akhil cannot organize or join a labor union. Akhil’s superiors insist that he represent himself as my “virtual assistant” in the project. In a way, these restrictions are the juice of the project. Not because I’m seeking to call Get Friday out for bad labor practices (it actually seems like a great place to work for many), but because I’m calling to question the dynamics of this whole economy, which Get Friday and I are just a small part of. Consistent with the sociological categorization of immaterial labor, Akhil performs labor in which he has to speak, communicate, and cooperate within an organization that has been normalized for economic efficiency. Though the work Akhil has done for this project (which is far less than the work I have done for it) benefits me in certain ways (I have been invited to present the work internationally), the project has become an attempt to allow for that forced speech, communication, and cooperation to become a will to speak, communicate, and cooperate. By asking Akhil to relax and write down his thoughts in front of his favorite view of Bangalore, or asking him to assign me a task, or asking him what he wants to be working on at work, we have achieved this to varying degrees. Akhil told me he wanted the opportunity to work on design and engineering projects in

The Virtual Assistance Project – Social Experiment Read More »

On our invitation Andrew is posting his thoughts about the social experiment here on our blog. For more in-depth information on this project please read “Virtual Assistance: An Interview with Andrew Norman Wilson” in Media Fields Journal. Andrew talks about his project: I want to start this post by stating my belief that the critical dimensions of my project, which include this post, are articulated with the utmost respect for all the actors involved – Akhil, the other virtual assistants at GetFriday, and the Get Friday management. I want to be sure that this project is not understood as a way to blame or point fingers at individuals or the company as a whole. Setting the personal dimensions aside, this project is about an economy of informational labor that has inherited certain power relations from prior (though still simultaneous) forms of capitalism. In doing what I do I am not attempting to destroy or overthrow, but rather to question the relationships we take for granted or accept as inevitable every day by attempting to actually live the changes I would like to see. The people at GetFriday have been extremely open and helpful in allowing this to happen to a certain extent, and I doubt I would have found such openness at another virtual assistance service. As my artist statement for the project reads: The Virtual Assistance project began with research geared towards unpacking the relational system of GetFriday, a virtual personal assistant service based in Bangalore, India. Get Friday typically provides remote executive support, where a largely American client base is assigned a “virtual” personal assistant. I am a part of that client base, paying monthly fees for a primary assistant who works out of the Get Friday office in India. My “assistant” is a 25-year-old male Bangalore resident named Akhil. In paying for our relationship I am not trying to lighten my workload, but rather to attempt collaborative projects and even reversals of the normative outsourcing flow under a corporate contract arranged for one-way command. Using the service has been a method of engaging with, understanding, and reacting to an economy in order to learn, with the help of Akhil, how to peel back the corporate veneer, revealing limitations, histories, biographies, networks, power, desire, and more. Personal outsourcing initially came to my attention through the writings of proponents Thomas Friedman and Timothy Ferris as a method to shorten the typical American work week – to slough off excess labor onto globally integrated residents of developing countries. Global outsourcing tends to produce telematic relationships – telematic in the sense of a remote control over another’s labor. These conditions led to a number of questions about power relations that have been guiding me through the project. If power is defined as the ability to manipulate resources across space and time, to what extent can power in my relationship with Akhil and GetFriday be re-distributed amongst a service where the normative use is one-way command? How can this be reversed towards mutual assistance and collaboration? How can this relationship exceed the commodified forms intimacy and creativity privileged by service-based economies? The Get Friday service initially struck me as an opportunity for direct engagement with one of the dominant symbols of globalism—outsourced labor in India. GetFriday’s goal of “enhancing value to its clients” is consistent with the dominant use of outsourcing and its accompanying definition of value – profitability. Most people sign up for this service not to learn about their Indian assistants or to engage in a dynamic version of a pen pal relationship, but rather to outsource low-end tasks for a low price. However, profitability is not the fundamental horizon in which my project is formed. Profitability is a term of economic efficiency, and this is not an economically efficient relationship. In terms of social profitability, a much more efficient relationship would be to find the most “relevant” Indian gallery or artist willing to work with me, and try to make work about outsourcing. This project, while partially about outsourcing, more importantly uses outsourcing. The relationship-project is inherently problematic in a number of ways for me, and so the stakes are higher and the baggage is heavier. A crucial reorientation of my goals for the project came with my understandings of my contract with GetFriday. The power dynamics of the relationship are largely determined by the limitations put into play by the corporate contract and the accompanying forms of social engagement that are deemed acceptable by GetFriday management. I can’t have contact with Akhil outside of the official GetFriday communication channels, and all communication can be monitored by Akhil’s superiors. Akhil cannot organize or join a labor union. Akhil’s superiors insist that he represent himself as my “virtual assistant” in the project. In a way, these restrictions are the juice of the project. Not because I’m seeking to call Get Friday out for bad labor practices (it actually seems like a great place to work for many), but because I’m calling to question the dynamics of this whole economy, which Get Friday and I are just a small part of. Consistent with the sociological categorization of immaterial labor, Akhil performs labor in which he has to speak, communicate, and cooperate within an organization that has been normalized for economic efficiency. Though the work Akhil has done for this project (which is far less than the work I have done for it) benefits me in certain ways (I have been invited to present the work internationally), the project has become an attempt to allow for that forced speech, communication, and cooperation to become a will to speak, communicate, and cooperate. By asking Akhil to relax and write down his thoughts in front of his favorite view of Bangalore, or asking him to assign me a task, or asking him what he wants to be working on at work, we have achieved this to varying degrees. Akhil told me he wanted the opportunity to work on design and engineering projects in

The Satyam Scandal

We at GetFriday understand the concerns raised in the wake of the Satyam scandal. The scandal is unfortunate and particularly shocking given that Satyam is the 4th largest IT firm in India. But the Indian industry believes that this is an isolated cased and an aberration. It may be recalled that some of the best Indian firms like Infosys have earned their reputation through adhering to good business ethics and the highest standards of corporate governance. It should be noted that other countries and industries also have bad apples. The likes of Enron, Worldcom and the recent Madoff case come to mind. Even in this case, the audit firm involved was PriceWaterhouseCoopers, one of the big 5. No matter how well planned a system is there will always be people who will find a way around it. The Indian regulatory system is strong and robust and is expected to act as swiftly as possible to ensure that the hard earned reputation of India Inc. is protected. GetFriday: We are not a listed company with public investors. We are closely held with the majority stakeholder being the TTK Group, a business conglomerate that is synonymous with trust, since 1928. The group is known for its conservatism and its unblemished reputation. Over the last 80 years, the group has worked with many international companies and brands including Cadburys, Ponds, Sara Lee and Durex. Many of its brands have been household names in India now for decades. While being a client is quite different from being an investor, we would like you to know that GetFriday is backed by an 80-year-old group with a rock solid foundation. Issues that are relevant to the context: 1) Security of financial information Right from the inception of GetFriday in 2005, we realized that the security of financial information was critical to our success. So we implemented a system that does not allow the assistants to access any credit card information. While online shopping on behalf of clients is an everyday affair at GetFriday, we have ensured that assistants can go only up to the check out stage and then have to hand over the shopping to their team-lead for completion. This is thanks to our secure Safe-Access system that requires two levels of authorization for any transaction. Each transaction is tracked and the details stored so that there is a clear audit trail. This has ensured a trouble free and safe operation with zero fraud reported so far since 2005. With our online billing system, all information is double encrypted, password protected and then secured with a pass phrase (never stored on any system). The information resides on a secure network with firewall protection and is PCI compliant to ensure that the information is secure. Again, the audit trail clearly fixes accountability and responsibility based on access. 2) Confidentiality of Personal / Business information As a matter of utmost precaution we ask all our assistants to communicate and handle tasks only through our CRM system (Pivotal from CDC Software, a top ten ranked CRM vendor globally). This ensures the tracking and safety of client information. Communicating on personal email ids is prohibited and even on official email ids is allowed only when there is a maintenance break or unscheduled breakdown on the CRM system. Our privacy policy and confidentiality clauses as per terms of service require every assistant to not share information pertaining to one client with another. We conduct regular training sessions and sensitize staff on the importance of these measures. Employees are required to sign an NDA and confidentiality agreement as part of their employment contract with us. If some clients require specific NDA’s signed then we review them on a case-by-case basis and then take it forward on a mutually agreeable basis. 3) Business Continuity While business continuity is a cause for major concern if someone is outsourcing critical parts of their business, it is imperative in the case of a VA service that there are no long-term contracts and commitments. If clients want to drop out, all that is needed is a month’s notice. Similarly if GetFriday is unable to provide service for any reasons or if the contract is terminated, then it is our duty and commitment to hand over confidential information or destroy it within the specific time mentioned in the NDA and confidentiality agreement. In fact, there can’t be a better option than a service like us which protects and insulates clients from the issues of attrition, sudden surges / drops in business, and unavailability of assistants on account on normal issues like vacation, sickness etc. This is as nice and dependable as it can get for small outsourcing that is not worth a million dollars. We have maintained utmost transparency with our clients across the globe and always encourage clients who are on a visit to India to drop by and get to know us in flesh and blood. Outsourcing is here to stay, and this scam shall not affect Indian businesses adversely. Read more on this. If you have any concerns or question, you can post a comment here or contact us through our website, www.getfriday.com

The Satyam Scandal Read More »

We at GetFriday understand the concerns raised in the wake of the Satyam scandal. The scandal is unfortunate and particularly shocking given that Satyam is the 4th largest IT firm in India. But the Indian industry believes that this is an isolated cased and an aberration. It may be recalled that some of the best Indian firms like Infosys have earned their reputation through adhering to good business ethics and the highest standards of corporate governance. It should be noted that other countries and industries also have bad apples. The likes of Enron, Worldcom and the recent Madoff case come to mind. Even in this case, the audit firm involved was PriceWaterhouseCoopers, one of the big 5. No matter how well planned a system is there will always be people who will find a way around it. The Indian regulatory system is strong and robust and is expected to act as swiftly as possible to ensure that the hard earned reputation of India Inc. is protected. GetFriday: We are not a listed company with public investors. We are closely held with the majority stakeholder being the TTK Group, a business conglomerate that is synonymous with trust, since 1928. The group is known for its conservatism and its unblemished reputation. Over the last 80 years, the group has worked with many international companies and brands including Cadburys, Ponds, Sara Lee and Durex. Many of its brands have been household names in India now for decades. While being a client is quite different from being an investor, we would like you to know that GetFriday is backed by an 80-year-old group with a rock solid foundation. Issues that are relevant to the context: 1) Security of financial information Right from the inception of GetFriday in 2005, we realized that the security of financial information was critical to our success. So we implemented a system that does not allow the assistants to access any credit card information. While online shopping on behalf of clients is an everyday affair at GetFriday, we have ensured that assistants can go only up to the check out stage and then have to hand over the shopping to their team-lead for completion. This is thanks to our secure Safe-Access system that requires two levels of authorization for any transaction. Each transaction is tracked and the details stored so that there is a clear audit trail. This has ensured a trouble free and safe operation with zero fraud reported so far since 2005. With our online billing system, all information is double encrypted, password protected and then secured with a pass phrase (never stored on any system). The information resides on a secure network with firewall protection and is PCI compliant to ensure that the information is secure. Again, the audit trail clearly fixes accountability and responsibility based on access. 2) Confidentiality of Personal / Business information As a matter of utmost precaution we ask all our assistants to communicate and handle tasks only through our CRM system (Pivotal from CDC Software, a top ten ranked CRM vendor globally). This ensures the tracking and safety of client information. Communicating on personal email ids is prohibited and even on official email ids is allowed only when there is a maintenance break or unscheduled breakdown on the CRM system. Our privacy policy and confidentiality clauses as per terms of service require every assistant to not share information pertaining to one client with another. We conduct regular training sessions and sensitize staff on the importance of these measures. Employees are required to sign an NDA and confidentiality agreement as part of their employment contract with us. If some clients require specific NDA’s signed then we review them on a case-by-case basis and then take it forward on a mutually agreeable basis. 3) Business Continuity While business continuity is a cause for major concern if someone is outsourcing critical parts of their business, it is imperative in the case of a VA service that there are no long-term contracts and commitments. If clients want to drop out, all that is needed is a month’s notice. Similarly if GetFriday is unable to provide service for any reasons or if the contract is terminated, then it is our duty and commitment to hand over confidential information or destroy it within the specific time mentioned in the NDA and confidentiality agreement. In fact, there can’t be a better option than a service like us which protects and insulates clients from the issues of attrition, sudden surges / drops in business, and unavailability of assistants on account on normal issues like vacation, sickness etc. This is as nice and dependable as it can get for small outsourcing that is not worth a million dollars. We have maintained utmost transparency with our clients across the globe and always encourage clients who are on a visit to India to drop by and get to know us in flesh and blood. Outsourcing is here to stay, and this scam shall not affect Indian businesses adversely. Read more on this. If you have any concerns or question, you can post a comment here or contact us through our website, www.getfriday.com

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