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We spoke with Bibi about how implementing Shift across her team has transformed the way they serve their clients. Watch the video and read more below!
** Bibi is using the old version of Shift (v7). Check out the new version of Shift (v8), here. **
Bibi founded her company, Buying Time, in 2007 with the vision of providing entrepreneurs and small business owners with services and expertise on the important tasks that allow their businesses to run. Bibi and her team provide a full suite of back-office and administration-related services including mailbox administration, marketing, social media management, website updates, and bookkeeping.
Outside of her busy life as a business owner and team leader, Bibi is an avid traveler (hello Italy!) and sports fan, particularly for the NFL and the Green Bay Packers.
The Need for and Discovery of Shift
In Bibi's world, working with numerous clients means numerous email inboxes and logins to access client accounts. On top of all the external communication, Bibi and her team utilize their own digital tools such as Teamwork for task management and time tracking, and Google Chat for internal communication.
Before using Shift, Bibi's experience was similar to most who use various digital tools and work primarily online: too many browser windows and tabs. Some of Bibi's team members manage upwards of 20 clients, each with their own email and unique set of tools to be monitored. Bibi's team was spending a significant amount of time switching among clients and their respective tools. This was valuable, unbillable, time that could be better spent helping clients achieve their goals. Working in a browser and other email tools continued to inadequately address her team's pain point.
"The amount of time it takes to transition [without Shift] is huge."
Bibi and her team first discovered Shift in April 2020 when they saw one of their clients that were using it. After seeing Shift in action, they were instantly curious. After downloading Shift and signing up for a free trial, Bibi knew this was a tool that could help them work better.
How Shift Helps Teams work Better
Prior to Shift, Bibi and her team tried a different email tool but found the UI to be clunky and unintuitive. Preferring the standard web view from Google made working within multiple email inboxes much easier in Shift. On personal accounts, quick access to Calendar and Drives makes for easy scheduling with clients and team members. Each of Bibi's team members manages different client accounts and provides different services. Not all team members have the same access or use the same tools. Shift for Teams provides Bibi and her team the flexibility needed for each team member to customize their setups according to their unique workflow needs.
"It is an amazing amount of time savings. It has increased productivity for everyone on our team that uses Shift."
Badges in the sidebar provide a visual queue of what client account new messages come in. If there are several new messages, it's an indicator that something important may have come up. Having everything accessible with the click of a button in the sidebar allows her team to switch over when their attention is needed, ultimately helping them be more responsive. Having everything accessible in one platform allows for optimal account organization that other tools simply can't provide. Shift's interface inherently helps Bibi and her team reduce response times because of the less time they spend switching accounts.
"We started to notice our non-billable time went way down because we didn't spend that 2-3 minutes of shutting down and opening the next task multiple times a day, multiples times a week. It totally adds up."
Onboarding new Team Members
Beyond Shift's interface, Bibi's favorite features include unread message badges, password management, and the ability for her (the team Admin) to easily manage her purchased licenses using the Shift for Teams dashboard. This dashboard allows for the Admin of the team the ability to purchase new licenses for additional members as well as unassign and assign purchased licenses to team members, which, as Bibi notes, often isn't a feature that's available!
"Shift is phenomenal. It's something that we're going to have as part of our team and our organization for a long time."
In need of virtual assistant services? Connect with Bibi and her team, here.
What's next?
Ready to try Shift for yourself? Download now!
Find quick tips and best practices in our Getting Started section here.
Read about other Shift Case Studies here.
