Are you a freelancer or do you have a small business and are you having difficulties in managing appointments with customers or suppliers? Would you need an answering service for your business but you don’t know who to contact? Then I think you should take a look at Secretary.me , because it could finally make you say goodbye to the problems you typically have in the secretarial environment (what to say, what to answer, when to forward a call, when to make appointments, how many calls to make etc. ), allowing you to better organize the work to be done avoiding wasting time or potentially fatal distractions in acquiring new appointments or orders.
Secretary.me is a first telephone reception service for freelancers and small businesses designed to meet the needs of doctors, lawyers, commercial agents, real estate agents, condominium administrators, notaries and other professionals who work alone or in a studio. . Thanks to the perfect synergy between the people who perform the secretarial role and the software of segretaria.me , the professionals who activate the service can optimize the process of making appointments by receiving real-time notifications of the activity performed (via email, app and panel ) and being able to monitor everything in real timeboth from the web and from smartphone apps. It should also be emphasized that it is possible to set up VIP contacts or particular issues for which to be contacted and receive the forwarding of calls that arrive to the secretaries of the segretaria.me team ; other calls are then automatically forwarded if the person carrying out the secretarial work feels a certain sense of urgency . 24/7 availability is then guaranteed : human operators are available from 09.00 to 19.00, while in the rest of the day a digital answering machine service is active with sending emails in real time.
All this is offered at extremely affordable prices through prepaid and rechargeable plans with auto-renewal and auto-top-up, to ensure that the service is always active and it is easier to measure how much you are investing ( without exit penalties , which is not common in Italian scenario), and with a very simple activation procedure: less digitized customers can contact customer assistance and receive all the necessary support in the configuration / use of the panel, both in the initial setup phase (with a welcome call within 24 hours of activation, on weekdays), and for fine tuning in the following weeks. The package also includes aVoIP telephone number with area code chosen by the customer which, if connected to a telephone set, becomes a dedicated telephone line for receiving and making phone calls. Interesting, right? Then read on and find out in more detail how Secretary.me works .
Index
- Functions and characteristics of segretaria.me
- Prices of segretaria.me
- How to use segretaria.me
- For more information
Functions and characteristics of segretaria.me
Before getting to the heart of this guide and explaining in detail how Secretaria.me works , let me give you some more information about the features and functions offered by the service in question.
Segretaria.me is part of B2YOU , a telecommunications company founded in 2001 and an Italian leader in the online sale of toll-free numbers and value-added telephone services. This is the same company that launched Numeroverde.it : the first Italian e-commerce dedicated to toll-free numbers with over 10,000 customers and offices in Milan, Paris and Madrid. More info here .
As mentioned in the opening words of this guide, segretaria.me is a first telephone reception service for freelancers and small businesses that allows you to have an efficient and effective secretarial system always at your disposal with a 7/7 and 24 / 24h operation. : from 09.00 to 19.00 with a team of secretaries who work remotely and from 19.00 to 09.00 through an automatic answering machine that records the calls received.
The secretary responds to customers and suppliers by supporting the organizational needs of the professional and managing the calls according to them in the best possible way; therefore arranges for appointments by managing agendas and calendars in the best possible way (it is possible to use both the segretaria.me calendar and Google Calendar, and after checking with the customer service it is possible to connect to external links and fix the appointment directly in the management system of the customer) and to forward to the professional the calls desired by the latter or deemed urgent.
The remote secretary also makes calls to organize appointments, events and meetings (with the ability to decide the content and when to start the activity, report any urgent contacts and request the sending of an
SMS in case of no reply). It is also possible to contact the secretary by telephone to be put in communication with the people in your address book (you can easily import the address book of your customers) or with a personalized number.
Everything can be managed and monitored in real time from the Web and from the app, with free notifications in real time via email, SMS and app for each activity carried out: in this way it is possible to stay aligned on all communications and manage them all in the best possible way. its activities.
If you want a taste of what segretaria.me is able to do , connect to the home page of the service and fill out the form you find at the center to perform a live telephone test .
Prices of segretaria.me
Secretary.me proposes plans suitable for all needs . These are rechargeable prepaid solutions that provide for automatic renewal and recharge, in order to ensure that the service is always active and that there are no bad surprises in the expenses made. Another important thing to underline is that there are no exit penalties : an uncommon factor in the Italian scenario.
Each plan includes credit with a certain number of minutes of conversation from the secretary and a national VoIP number with a prefix of your choice (to which you can also divert calls from your landline or mobile number): once the threshold set by each offer is exceeded to pay according to consumption, with variable prices depending on the chosen plan. Below you will find the features of all plans in detail.
- SMART (25 euros / month) – 25 euros of credit included with a 0.99 euros / min rate and quarterly subscription in auto-renewal, up to 25 minutes / month included, operational secretary7/7 from 09.00 to 19.00, segretaria.me app , management panel, 1 fixed number, 1 agenda and 5 insights. More info here .
- OPEN (75 euro / month) – 75 euro credit included with 0.79 euro / min rate and monthly subscription in auto-renewal, up to 95 minutes / month included, operating secretary7/7 from 09.00 to 19.00, segretaria.me app , management panel, 1 fixed number, 2 agendas and 8 insights. More info here .
- FULL (150 euros / month)– 150 euros of credit included with a rate of 0.59 euros / min and monthly or annual subscription discounted by 10%, up to 254 minutes / month included, operating secretary 7/7 from 09.00 to 19.00, app me , management panel, 1 fixed number, 5 agendas and 12 insights. More info here .
Thanks to the #PresentaSegretariame program, it is also possible to obtain free credit by having other people enroll in segretaria.me . To be precise, presenting and presenting receive a credit gift equal to 20% of the activated package. All the VAT numbers who are already customers of segretaria.me can take advantage of this possibility : just select the item Refer a friend from the control panel.
How to use segretaria.me
Now that you have clear features and prices of the service, I would say to move on to the practical side of this tutorial and see together how segretaria.me works .
The first thing to do, of course, is to activate your account: you can do it by connecting to the official website of segretaria.me , clicking on the activation button at the top and following the instructions on the screen. It is a question of choosing one of the available plans , specifying if you are a company , professional / sole proprietorship , association or private individual and filling in the form below with the required data (eg VAT number, tax code, name and surname, address etc.) .
Here it is also possible to choose the prefix of the VoIP landline number offered by segretaria.me and enter a promotional code to get discounts on the purchased plan. You must then choose a secure payment method between card and PayPal , accept the conditions of use of the service and click Continue to complete the registration and purchase.
Once you have registered, to access the Secretary.me control panel you need to click on the Login item at the top of the site or, alternatively, connect directly to this page and then enter the username and password provided in the welcome email.
The Welcome page of the panel indicates all the actions to be carried out to make the service work and also allows you to download the user manuals and the manual with the codes to set call forwarding on your landline phone (on a smartphone just use the app of segretaria.me ).
If you were wondering, the actions to be performed are very simple: specifically, you must indicate what the secretary must do (as already mentioned, her duties include the management of incoming and outgoing calls, the forwarding of calls with the management of VIP contacts and making appointments) and what information the secretary must know (in other words, it is necessary to enter information or indications on the activity carried out by the company, which will be reported to customers); therefore it is necessary to indicate whether to forward the calls to one or more contacts and to choose between priority and backup modes .
Regarding this last possibility, you should know that the service is usually set in priority : this means that the secretary answers immediately and forwards only if the transfer has been configured. However, it is possible to add a backup telephone number on which to receive calls when the service is not active and, if desired, set this number as a priority (in order to receive calls on it and pass them to the secretary only if not answer).
The backup number can be fixed or mobile, but it must not have an associated secretarial service (otherwise, in case of no answer, the calls will not be diverted to the secretary of segretaria.me ) and, of course, it must not be diverted to the twinned number. at the service of segretaria.me (as it would create a loop of phone calls).
Net of the backup number, I remind you that segretaria.me also includes an answering machine service that is activated when the team of human secretaries is not active (from 19.00 to 09.00): the automatic service records the voice messages received and sends them in real time to the e-mail box inserted in the Home of the control panel. The messages are kept for 6 months and can be listened to by going to Call details in the panel.
Calls, as well as appointments and contacts in the address book, are easily accessible from the Home page of segretaria.me which also contains the panel that allows you to quickly switch between Priority and Back Up modes , to set a backup number and an email address. on which to receive messages from the automatic answering machine.
Also on the Home page there is a summary of the activities of the last 7 days and a menu to set any days in which to make the number assigned to you unreachable .
In the Configuration section (accessible from the convenient side menu or from the Welcome screen) you can then manage many aspects of segretaria.me . In What to do , for example, you can set the sentence that the secretary must pronounce when answering calls and customize the behavior for what concerns forwarding (never, always or only VIP) and making appointments; it is also possible to set the answer to be given when you are not available. You can even choose whether to activate music on hold instead of rings.
In the field dedicated to the personal data to be requested , it is possible to select the data that the secretary will have to collect in order to fill in the personal data of the caller (name, surname and telephone number will always be collected); the first level in-depth field , on the other hand, relates to the additional information that the secretary will have to collect (eg case reference, order number, and so on) in addition to personal data. This information will be linked to the single call and not to the caller’s personal data.
Through the In- depth field it is possible to add information on your business (eg opening hours, medical examinations to be requested, etc.) that the secretary must know in order to better answer calls and organize agendas. For any further information, subject and description must be entered . It should be noted that the reading time is an integral part of the management of the phone call and is charged at the minute cost of the package purchased.
Other fields that can be found on the “Configuration” page are those relating to notifications (to set the email address on which to receive communications and the name to be used for sending SMS to callers); to the company registry (in which to enter the data of your business); to the organization of contact persons (to give access to the secretarial service to other people, with the possibility of regulating access permissions to apps, panels and calendars); to the offices (in which to enter the offices of your business) and to the closures for national holidays (to choose the holidays in which not to accept appointments).
Furthermore, I would like to point out that by going to My account you can activate personalized messages for the answering machine and always manage them from the “Configuration” page. The service costs 10 euros one-time and the messages can be changed whenever you want.
As you can see, it’s all very intuitive, and the same goes for all the other sections of the panel. For example, by going to Telephone management it is possible to monitor in real time all the activities carried out by the secretary, with the details of the calls received and made ( contact , contact person , intervention , date , outcome and ID ), the possibility of filtering calls based on to various parameters and the option to download the report in Excel format.
By clicking on the item relating to a call it is then possible to view the details and ask the secretary to intervene directly (here are also the options to mark the activity as urgent and request the sending of a personalized SMS after three failed contact attempts) .
By going to the Call details section, it is possible to view the summary of the consumption of the calls that the secretary has managed during the day or in a customized time interval.
For the management of outgoing calls , however, there is a special section of the panel that allows you to schedule calls from the secretary to individual contacts or lists of people, as well as to view the activities already carried out in detail.
To request a new activity (therefore a new outgoing call), just press the appropriate button and fill in the form that opens with description, details of the people to contact (you can also upload an XLS file with contacts), on the day of management of the activity, the data of a possible contact person and, if desired, the paid options to mark the activity as urgent (20 cents / attempt) and send a personalized SMS after 3 failed attempts (20 cents / SMS) .
The Appointments Management section is the one that allows you to view the calendar with all your appointments, set new ones and request the movement of those previously set.
It is possible to use the owner calendar of segretaria.me or Google Calendar and manage the agendas by contact person (it is possible to create a calendar for each contact and allow the latter to display different levels of view) or by office (to create a calendar for each resource such as, for example, headquarters, council chamber or meeting room, after contacting the address [email protected] ). Note that to activate the calendar you must select the option Get appointments in the contact organization and configure the relative availability and types of services.
To configure the services (very important operation, since in order to fix the appointments the secretary will need to know which services to set and the duration of the same) just go to the appropriate field of the “Appointment management” page, click on Add new and fill in the form that opens with name, duration, price and notes on the performance.
Another section that “speaks for itself” is the one dedicated to the address book management , in which you can manage the address book and add new contacts . For each contact it is possible to choose whether to add him to the VIP (to forward his calls) or to his own Blacklist (to not let his calls arrive to the secretary).
Also worth noting is the presence of an option to export the address book and thus download it in a file on your computer.
Finally, there are the My Account and Assistance sections which allow you, respectively, to view the details of your current plan and purchase any upgrades and additional packages (e.g. calls for confirmation of appointment, SMS for confirmation of appointment, SMS for appointment reminder and personalized voice messages for secretariat) and open tickets to receive support in case of need.
I also remind you that segretaria.me can be managed very easily from the app available for Android and iOS : the latter has all the main functions of the Web version and also allows you to set call forwarding on your mobile phone in a few taps. Really very comfortable!
For more information
If you need more information about segretaria.me and how it works, I invite you to “take a leap” on the official page with the FAQ , where you can find the answers to all the most frequently asked questions.
If, on the other hand, you need to get in touch directly with the staff of segretaria.me , you can connect to this page , where there is a form to contact the sales office and all the telephone and online numbers to communicate with the company.
