Repetitive admin tasks like filing documents and scheduling appointments are the backbone of any business. Whether you like it or not, these time-consuming chores support your profit-making activities.
These tasks cannot be avoided. They can only be delegated.
A virtual assistant takes responsibility for such tasks and supports your in-house employees. Discover how they can boost your business’ growth in innumerable ways!
What Is a Virtual Assistant?
A virtual assistant (VA) offers admin support for executives, entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes. They’re also trained in specialized skills such as social media management, content creation or bookkeeping. These additional skill sets improve project quality and enhance your company’s adaptability to changing trends.
Virtual assistants work remotely and communicate with clients over the internet. Because of the flexibility they offer, companies are increasingly turning to VAs for additional expertise and efficiency.
With a virtual assistant on deck, you can take the load off of core employees so they can better invest energy in increasing revenue for your company.
What Can Virtual Assistants Do?
Different types of virtual assistants support companies in boosting business productivity. Virtual assistants can offer support in a wide range of administrative and skill-based departments.
What are some major virtual assistant tasks?
General Admin Tasks
A company cannot sustain itself without admin tasks. With a virtual assistant, you can streamline all business processes and simplify your operations.
The specific responsibilities can vary, but most admin assistants handle clerical tasks like:
- Managing email inboxes, cleaning out junk emails and creating templates.
- Maintaining and updating calendars for individuals and teams.
- Scheduling business meetings and taking minutes for future reference.
- Receiving work calls and taking messages from callers.
- Making travel arrangements for executives by booking flights, hotels and rental cars.
Accounting Assistance
Accounting is a high-stakes department that manages all financial transactions of a company.
A trained virtual accounts assistant will collect financial data from all departments, manage the invoices and record them in an organized manner. They assist accountants in reporting financial information and filing timely tax returns.
Some accounts responsibilities delegated to virtual assistants include:
- Preparing invoices as well as collecting invoices from departments.
- Clearing outstanding invoices with clients and vendors on time.
- Organizing and maintaining documents.
- Assisting in creating a budget and generating quarterly reports.
HR Support
The human resource department is tasked with staffing for the business and day-to-day employee management.
From screening resumes to ensuring compliance with company policies, from managing employees to administering their benefits—the department is overwhelmed with repetitive tasks.
To save your HR executives’ time, hire a virtual assistant right away.
Some of their supporting tasks are:
- Keeping records of employee attendance, leave applications and leave approvals or rejections.
- Resolving low-level employee queries like “How can I check my attendance?”
- Assisting in onboarding, orientation and training of new employees.
- Assisting in payroll duties.
- Helping HR executives formulate policies and circulate notices for policy updates.
Digital Marketing
An efficient digital marketing team will increase your brand awareness and improve your conversion rates. The global reach you attain will make for powerful returns on investment (ROI).
You can delegate important marketing duties like website maintenance, content creation, SEO audits and more.
A virtual marketing assistant can handle tasks like:
- Managing multiple social media accounts.
- Researching the market for new trends.
- Conducting keyword research for SEO ranking.
- Designing basic graphics and writing ad copy for websites and social media.
- Analyzing campaign performance based on engagement and conversion.
- Managing email marketing lists and sending monthly newsletters.
Sales Outreach
Lead generation and conversion are handled by the sales outreach department of a company. Hence, this crucial department directly brings in business.
It’s the point of contact for both inbound and outbound sales. Sales staff also follow up with customers and resolve post-sale queries.
Despite the gravity of their work, sales executives are still burdened with admin tasks.
Support your sales staff by hiring a virtual sales assistant for:
- Assisting in data mining and creating customer personas.
- Scoring leads and identifying the best prospects.
- Making cold calls to potential leads and pitching the company’s products/services.
- Drafting cold emails and sending them out to potential leads.
Personal Assistance
If you have a demanding job and your personal errands are piling up, a virtual assistant can ease some of the pressure.
Work-life balance can be improved by relying on your virtual personal assistant. They offer support for household management as well as social commitments. They will help you by:
- Paying your monthly bills and recording your expenses.
- Making personal appointments and updating your calendar.
- Setting reminders for family and friends’ birthdays and anniversaries.
- Making online purchases for gifts and flowers.
- Booking movie tickets and making dinner reservations.
- Scheduling home maintenance work like plumbing and landscaping.
Customer Service
Today’s informed buyers expect quality services at every step of the consumer journey. Providing a satisfying post-sales service to customers will help you gain the trust of the community.
A virtual customer support assistant will follow up with existing customers and resolve their grievances, if any. They can also inform them about newly launched products, offers and discounts. The goal is to improve customer satisfaction and build long-term relationships.
Some VA customer service duties are:
- Receiving phone calls from customers.
- Responding to grievance emails.
- Resolving refund, return or exchange requests.
- Collecting testimonials from satisfied customers.
- Collecting feedback from customers facing issues.
Other Specialized Skills
With constant shifts in industry trends, skill gaps can occur frequently in an organization. And it can be time-consuming to upskill an existing employee to meet this gap.
If you’re on the hunt for specific skill sets, consider investing in an experienced VA instead.
Here are some examples of these specialized skills:
- Creating branded graphics and design elements
- Developing websites
- Entering data using advanced spreadsheet skills
- Proofreading and editing content
- Copywriting for ads
Why Should You Hire a Virtual Assistant?
A virtual assistant is a stepping stone for growth, whether you’re a mature business or a startup.
They can do virtually everything, from low-skill tasks like data entry to high-skill tasks like accounting assistance. A virtual assistant’s support to your team will only multiply revenue.
Below are some solid benefits of hiring a virtual assistant.
Reduced Costs
Every business has the same goal—widening the gap between revenue and costs.
A virtual assistant significantly slashes overhead expenses like equipment, office space and health insurance. The capital you save can be re-invested in the company. Additionally, virtual assistant rates are more affordable than traditional employees.Hiring a virtual assistant might just be the most effective cost-cutting decision you can make.
No Training Requirements
A virtual assistant can be onboarded faster than a traditional employee.
This is because they’re hired by outsourcing companies based on years of industry experience in their field. Additionally, they undergo rigorous training before they start working with clients.
Hiring a virtual assistant significantly cuts the time and money spent on hiring and training.
Flexibility
Recruiting virtual assistants is quick and easy, since outsourcing companies handle hiring and training. Depending on your business needs, you can onboard one, two or even a dedicated team of virtual assistants.
In case an assistant fails to meet your requirements, you can replace them without any hassles.
Yearly commitments to traditional employees are another liability for businesses. With virtual assistants, no such bonds need to be signed because they are legal employees of the outsourcing company.
Business Scaling
Expanding your workforce and upscaling your business is easier with a team of virtual assistants. You can multiply your manpower without having to expand office space and equipment.
If you’re short-staffed during crunch periods, you won’t have to rush through the recruitment process. Just hire an adaptable virtual assistant to match high demands and any sudden spike in projects.
Business Growth
Handing over the tedious non-core tasks of your workplace to your virtual assistant will maximize productivity and efficiency. This saves the valuable energy of core employees, which can be redirected towards growth.
Hiring a virtual assistant will free up days from your schedule. This time you earn back can be focused on strategizing for future development and expansion of the company.
24/7 Availability
VAs work from varied time zones, so they’ll be available to answer your customer support calls in the absence of your in-house team.Round-the-clock availability enhances goodwill and increases repeat customers. And a virtual assistant’s support would mean an improved work-life balance for your traditional employees.
How Can You Find A Virtual Assistant For Your Business?
It can be daunting to find, hire and train a virtual assistant who perfectly matches your needs.
So if you’re anxious about hiring a good virtual assistant, go for an outsourcing company like Zenius to ease this burden. We connect top-notch talent with employers through our client-centric process.
Because the virtual assistants are our legal employees, we take care of:
- Recruitment
- Training
- Employee management
- Statutory compliance
- Employee benefits
- Overhead costs
We value your opinion immensely. So you’re welcome to get involved in the screening and interview process. By asking insightful questions, you can make sure your future VA has all the right qualities.
How To Work With A Virtual Assistant?
To make the best use of a virtual assistant’s abilities, you must build a strong working relationship.
Combine the best delegation practices with these basic tips for working with virtual assistants.
Enable Communication Channels
Keep your virtual assistants in the loop to minimize the impact of physical distance on productivity.
Deliver simple, clear messages and listen actively to your virtual assistants. Since it’s a remote profile, be proactive and don’t worry about over-communicating.
Use synchronous communication tools like phone and video calls for urgent meetings, long discussions and for building rapport. Asynchronous communication tools like email and messages are better for project updates and sharing data.
In the absence of non-verbal cues like body language, be mindful of your tone in messages to avoid confusion. Always assume good intentions.
Connecting with virtual assistants is a great way to boost their morale and increase engagement at work.
Set Clear Expectations
Outline your expectations early on. Clearly defining the services expected from the virtual assistant prevents any confusion down the line.
To figure out the right workflow, answer these questions before signing the contract:
- What are the delegated tasks?
- What is the expected service level?
- How often should you get project updates?
- What is the feedback process like?
Track Performance
Track your virtual assistants to understand their strengths and give feedback for overall improvement. This will ensure their work aligns with your company’s goals.
An employee monitoring software compiles real-time data on the employee’s day-to-day productivity. This software tracks working hours and records virtual check-in and check-out times. The employee’s end-of-day (EOD) reports are also collected and shared with the client.
Another way to track performance is by using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These are quantifiable indicators that tell you about your team’s overall performance over time.
Avoid micromanaging as it prevents trust between you and your virtual assistant. Since you’ve hired your virtual assistant for their skills, continue showing up with respect for their ideas.
Schedule Regular Check-Ins
You can track the progress of projects through regular check-ins with your virtual assistant. Weekly or biweekly project updates improve accountability and help the virtual assistant meet your expectations better.
Break down your project into smaller milestones and track the completion of each one. This will keep the project updates shorter and more frequent, ultimately increasing the project quality.
Encourage the virtual assistant to ask questions, come up with ideas and share concerns regarding the project. Don’t forget to reward achievements!
Final Thoughts
Virtual assistants are a cost-effective, time-saving and flexible solution to all the tedious clerical tasks that hamper productivity.
They handle general admin tasks for all branches of an organization. Their domains include accounting, human resources, sales outreach, digital marketing and customer service. Other specialized skills and personal tasks can also be assigned to a virtual assistant.
You focus on growing your business. The rest can be outsourced to your virtual assistants.
