How a Virtual Assistant Can Help You?
A virtual assistant can help you by taking over time-consuming and repetitive tasks from your head, so you can focus on high-priority tasks. The tasks the VA can handle are not only confined to administrative support only; they can be your remote customer support executive, lead generator, or help with managing personal tasks too.
Want to know more? If you have not yet researched the VA, in this place you will get a clear idea of what a VA is and how they can help you. So, stick with us, while we move forward deeper into virtual assistants’ responsibilities.
What's Inside
What is a Virtual Assistant (VA)?
Virtual assistants are remote employees who work for individual clients and small to large companies and charge on an hourly basis most often. These remote professionals do not demand any physical office space or employment benefits like other on-site employees.
A virtual assistant, besides hourly rates, can work part-time, full-time, or on a project or contractual basis. Their hourly rates can start from $10 to a higher rate as per experience and responsibility.
However, VAs most often do not work for fixed office hours like 9 to 5. They choose their own working hours.
The best part of virtual helpers is they are self-motivated. They stay updated with the latest trends and tools and invest in them by themselves. They stay in continuous learning. All these lucrative businesses hire VAs rather than an in-house team.
At the same time, individuals are more interested in choosing this profession as they can enjoy their comfort without any binding office hours. They can earn while enjoying the comfort of their home.
There are some really lucrative statistics about VAs.
- Companies can reduce expenses by to 78% by hiring virtual assistants.
- Virtual assistants can save companies an average of 8-10 hours per week.
- Entrepreneurs spend 30% of their time on low-level tasks with a VA.
When these stats seem tempting to you, let’s check how a VA can specifically help you.
How a Virtual Assistant Can Help You in Specific Areas?
The concept of virtual assistants mainly starts with having remote support to delegate basic administrative tasks. But with the increasing demand, VAs are now not confined to administrative tasks only; there are tons of niche or industry expert virtual assistants working.
However, let’s start from the basics of how VAs are helpful in increasing productivity.
1. Productivity & Efficiency
Daily administrative tasks, such as scheduling meetings or data entry, are some responsibilities that you cannot avoid and that take most of your productivity time. The best you can do is to delegate these to your general VA. What can you achieve? It saves precious time.
Scheduling & Time Management:
The first thing is scheduling appointments for you with your clients or customers. Have you ever thought about how much time it takes? Moreover, fixing only meetings is not enough; you can add them to your calendar and make sure there is no conflict. This adds the extra responsibility of setting reminders so you do not miss any.
Your virtual assistant is an expert in calendar management and coordinating meetings. They will prioritize tasks and clients and set your time based on that. So, without interrupting much, you can get to handle important meetings and tasks first.
Email Management:
Overflowing email inboxes, not responding to important emails, or having unmanaged subscriptions is every business owner’s nightmare. You really do not have that time to manage your email inbox tasks for 2.6 hours daily and about 23 minutes to refocus after being interrupted by an email notification.
Virtual assistants save time and solely focus on organizing and filtering your email inbox. They will respond to your important emails and create drafts. Also, manage your subscriptions and newsletters.
Administrative Tasks:
There is no doubt that administrative tasks overburden any businesses where neither you nor your team can focus on core tasks.
Starting with data entry, the expert virtual assistant does all of it. They know how to input data into your database and keep it clean and organized. While doing so, they check the accuracy and enter all the data with accurate information.
Next, if you need help with making reports or presentations, simply put it on your VA. They know how to make reports using PowerPoint or other tools. You only need to provide content to them.
Now, are you going on a business trip? You know, the real hassle of booking tickets, making living arrangements there, and other stuff. With a virtual assistant, you will only board and go for your trip. The travel arrangement is on your VA.
2. Business Growth
We already talked about how VAs can make you productive so you can focus on growing your business. But can you again do it all alone? You will need to concentrate on your customers, as they are the core of your business. Or work on marketing your business. All these are hectic if you do not have a team or enough resources. But since VAs are cost-effective, let them handle it.
Customer Service:
Customers need to be heard and have their inquiries resolved; only you can expect them to become your paying customers. For this, VAs stay active all day long to respond to your customers. They work like a trusted advisor and direct the clients to resolve issues. By this, the customer starts to trust you, is impressed by your service, and turns into a loyal customer.
Besides giving customer service through inbound and outbound calls, VAs stay alert for social media engagements, too. People are now more into using social media; they mainly share inquiries via chat box, comments, or share. VAs respond everywhere your customers are engaging with your brand.
The VA utilizes CRM tools to provide customer service and maintain and update their data. Their focus stays on personalized customer interactions. They input new leads, update contact details, and track customer interactions to keep records accurate and up to date.
Marketing & Sales:
Virtual assistants, today, being experts in more skills such as content creation or digital marketing, are proving helpful for many companies. Without spending much, you can market your business and brand.
For this, hire someone who can write blog posts for your brand regularly. Also can write social media posts and captions. All should be targeted at your audience so the content becomes helpful and relevant. A professional virtual assistant, besides creating content, stays consistent and maintains strict deadlines.
If you are stepping back from email marketing, come ahead, as your marketing virtual assistant can do it too. They will create personalized emails to reach your clients and customers with hooking subject lines. Gradually, you will notice a lesser email bounce rate. Again, the VA can send customers updates with the latest offers from you.
Moreover, lead generation virtual assistants, which are now the most trending terms, can widely benefit you to get a stream of leads. They know lead generation strategy, ho w to identify new leads, outreach methods, and how to convince them to become paying clients.
3. Personal Life
Company owners, especially CEOs or higher-authority executives, often find it more difficult to maintain personal and work life. Personal virtual assistants here become more helpful.
These remote professionals act as your personal assistants and help you with daily grocery shopping, timely delivery, and organizing your home. Even if you have a doctor’s appointment, they can schedule it at your convenient time, too.
They do it either by taking contacts from you, such as the cleaner number or super shop contact info. Or they research on their own. Based on your needs, the VA makes a list and tries to fulfill everything.
Even if you forget about your dear one’s birthday or special occasion, the VA won’t. On your behalf, the VA will send wishing cards or gifts, so you can escape from those scolds.
However, for your personal development, just share with your VA what you want to achieve. Then, the virtual helper will research and gather resources for you. It can be any crash course. So, you can only focus on learning and spend most of your productive time.
How to Choose & Work with a Virtual Assistant?
The range of services you can avail yourself of from your personal virtual assistant is huge. But for this, you need to reach the right VA and know how you can work smoothly with them. Only then can you expect a better output from them.
How to Choose a Virtual Assistant?
Here are 7 steps for you to follow:
- Define tasks and responsibilities clearly. List the tasks you need help with. Be clear about what you want from the VA.
- Identify required skills and experience. Think about the skills you need. Do they need to be good with technology or have experience in a certain field?
- Choose between freelance platforms or VA agencies. You can hire from websites like Upwork or Fiverr or go with an agency. Agencies like YesAssistant may offer more support.
- Review portfolios, testimonials, and references. Check their past work. Read reviews from other clients. Ask for references to ensure they are reliable.
- Conduct interviews to assess communication and compatibility. Talk to them directly. See if they communicate well and understand your needs.
- Start with a trial project to evaluate performance. Give them a small task first. This helps you see how well they work and follow instructions.
- Ensure they have the tools/software knowledge you need. Make sure they are familiar with the tools you use, like email systems, project management software, or social media.
How to Work with a Virtual Assistant?
Start by setting clear expectations and goals. Let them know what you want to achieve. Also, share how they can help. Give them detailed instructions and training. This will help them understand their tasks.
You can use tools like Trello or Asana to manage projects. Try to communicate regularly and stay in touch through emails, calls, or messaging apps. This will help you stay updated.
Thirdly, you can set deadlines and milestones. So, you can keep tasks on track and maintain accountability. Share the resources they need, such as files or software, and ensure access is secure.
Lastly, always give constructive feedback to help them improve. Acknowledge their good work to keep them motivated. Your approach should be collaborative and organized.
Conclusion
Virtual assistants have become one of the popular terms in businesses. The reason is obvious: you get to hire someone who does not require physical space or any extra financial support. They only charge for what they do.
Thus, whether you need help handling daily basic administrative tasks, need help to grow your business, or need help to balance your personal life, your remote assistant will always be with you.
All you need to know is where and how to hire the right VA and then how to work with them.
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