One voice note.
That’s all it takes for shluchim to update social media, handle bookkeeping, manage your database, and track donations with the help of a Chabad Concierge virtual assistant.
A new program called Chabad Concierge caters to shluchim, including those with even the smallest mossad, enabling them to hire a well-trained assistant and immediately begin delegating tasks at a very low cost; or as CEO Yosef Romano puts it, “for less than what they’re paying their housekeeper.”
“Many companies can connect you to talent overseas,” Romano says, “But our organization is structured to offer high reliability and high performance, and our shlichus-focused team culture is the special sauce that helps do-it-all-yourself shluchim springboard into the role of employer.”
Now, shluchim gain more time for important tasks and the virtual assistants collaborate with each other, directly benefiting the shluchim. “Because they are all serving shluchim, they learn from each other and help each other out,” Romano says. The team members regularly discuss different strategies that work well for their Shliach during their team meetings.
Rabbi Shmuli Heidingsfeld, a shliach in Fort Lauderdale, has been using a Chabad Concierge virtual assistant for help with his shlichus. “The team is incredibly supportive and has great internal structure,” he says. “Having a VA opened my mind. Those overwhelming tasks that have been cluttering my desk, my schedule, and my brain – that I never got around to – are in the past.
“My VA helped me think outside the box in terms of what tasks we assign to him,” says Rabbi Yossi Shuchat of Jems, Sydney. “For an affordable price, you get to work with people who are happy to help with a positive attitude.”
It all began when Romano, then a shliach in Berkeley, CA, developed a CRM platform to manage his shlichus. After seeing that other shluchim shared a similar need, he launched Chabad Suite in 2015 and started implementing his solution for other Moisdos. Today, Chabad Suite’s offerings have evolved and it currently serves hundreds of Shluchim around the world.
Then, during the height of the pandemic, Romano was desperately looking for staff. “No one wanted to work at a regular rate because of the high government pay-outs,” he explains.
Romano decided to try hiring overseas but discovered that finding a reliable virtual assistant was a challenge. “I would hire people who had good ratings,” Romano says, “but their popularity left me competing for their attention. Then I would hire someone new, train them, only to see them leave a week later. It was a huge loss for me.” After months of trial and error, he created a fool-proof method on hiring employees and keeping them motivated to work.
Romano then trained assistants to understand the unique goals of a shliach, dubbing the service Chabad Concierge. “We provide a white glove service for the Shluchim,” Romano says.
The virtual assistants of Chabad Concierge hold their own workshops. When one has used a successful strategy, that strategy is documented and a tutorial is created so that the other assistants can replicate it. The virtual assistants then provide their shliach with a menu of proven strategies which they can complete on their own.
Romano is a huge fan of finding solutions for shluchim to increase efficiency and productivity. “I’m very passionate about helping shluchim,” he says. He realizes that active people don’t like inserting crucial data into a computer and is hoping virtual assistants will help shluchim better utilize their CRMs. His long term vision? “I hope that the wide adoption of virtual assistants will help us increase CRM utilization and standardize continuous data entry” he says. “Once there’s a lot of data, we can study it and create new technology that will benefit shluchim.”
Learn more about Chabad Concierge
Website: www.chabadconcierge.com
Email: [email protected]
Watch the recording of the webinar from May 10th
Amazing service!!
It would be nice to hire bochurim and yungerleit rather than gentiles overseas
They want to be paid a lot more than these workers are prepared to earn.
(Often a lot more than the shliach/shlucha is taking as their own salary.)