SVA Forum

[dawnienic]

Hi
I am a new VA - can anyone tell me the best ways to access your clients e-mails in Outlook. I have used webmail before and accessed online but wondered what other tools people might have used?
Thank you!

[dawnjlane]

I don't think there is a way to access their personal Outlook files unless you use something like Log Me In or Go To My PC, which means they have to leave their computer on at all times for you to be able to access it.

If you are wanting to action emails on their behalf, which is what I do for a lot of my clinets, you need to ask them to set you up with your own email address in their company name and have emails come to you. For example I have a numer of dawn@client.co.uk, admin@client.com email addresses etc. My clients give my email address as first point of call and I then filter the emails, passing on to the client any that I think they should be aware of. Similarly, if my client wants someone to get in touch with me to make appointments etc, they will cc me in on the email they send asking that person to contact me directly.

If you have the same email address as them, you will receive the exact same emails they get but you may then run into the problem of not know which of you has answered or whether both/neither have answered. Also any emails you send out using their email address will only be seen/saved on your system unless you BCC the sent from address, when you will then both get a copy of the sent email.

I don't use gmail accounts, so don't know if there is a way of doing it using that but I'm sure there is someone on here who will be able to advise.

Good luck with the new business.

Dawn
_________________
Dawn Lane VAcertified MAMS MInstAM
Your Office Online - www.your-office-online.co.uk
Virtual Business in a Box Ltd - www.virtualbusinessinabox.co.uk
dawn@your-office-online.co.uk
dawn@virtualbusinessinabox.co.uk

[caroline]

There is a way of doing it - but it depends very much on their IT set up - if the client has Microsoft Server Exchange, you should be able to set up Outlook as a webmail service so essentially you can see email, calendar entries, tasks, contacts etc. But very few people will have this set up as it's quite expensive.

As an alternative, you could have your client forward all the emails to your email address... Then you either set up a filter rule in your own Outlook to put all the emails into one folder, or you could have a specific email address where the emails get forwarded to. When VAs use Gmail, this is usually what they are doing, but personally I don't think Gmail is secure enough for client confidentiality purposes so I don't use it.

But as Dawn says, there's an issue with not knowing who has dealt with what... And also if you are filtering through maybe 100-200 emails a day to find the 3 emails which are relevant for you, there's a time implication on that, which of course your client would have to pay for. (Some clients will be absolutely fine about paying you for that, others will expect you to offer this "email minding" for free!)
_________________
To support SVA please donate to: http://tinyurl.com/37urec

[dawnienic]

Thanks for your help I will try your suggestions much appreciated!