What Does a General Virtual Assistant Do?

A general virtual assistant can handle several administrative tasks that are time-consuming, such as data entry, customer service, transcription, and so on, from a virtual platform. However, virtual assistants’ duties can expand based on the client’s requirements and expertise.

So, basically, a general virtual assistant can be a time saver and cost-efficient and let you focus on your core business activities. By delegating time-consuming tasks, you no longer need to worry about daily office tasks.

Want to know more about how a general virtual assistant can help you? Let’s talk about the responsibilities and types of tasks a general VA can do for you.

16 Key Tasks You Can Outsource From General Virtual Assistant

A general virtual assistant gives support for all basic, repetitive, time-consuming office management work like data entry and other administrative tasks. But they are not necessarily confined only to administrative tasks; they may handle social media management or customer service based on the company’s needs.

Here, check the top 16 common tasks you can outsource from your general virtual assistant but can extend to your specific requirements.

1. Administrative Support

The core responsibilities of a general VA are supporting all administrative tasks. The VA also manages daily tasks like files so everyone can easily access important files and find them organized.

Also, regular calendar management and sometimes creating and maintaining office documentation become their other responsibilities when the in-house staff becomes busy. The VA can take over all these time-consuming tasks. So, you and your team can focus on core activities and look for more business opportunities.

2. Data Entry

Data entry! One of the important tasks is that inaccurate information can impact all the databases and cut down a huge amount of time. Neither you can avoid taking this responsibility, nor have that time to spend, so, outsource your copy-paste data entry VA.

In the initial stage, most of the virtual assistants, learn about data entry and start their career doing this. So, they become the expert in data entry. You can hire one and pay them on an hourly basis. This will save you money and time.

3. Virtual Receptionist

Today businesses are more diverting into online business, where a virtual receptionist handles all the identical work that an in-house receptionist does. The VA welcomes the guest and helps them with their inquiries.

The digital receptionist receives phone calls and routes them to the appropriate department. Some VAs also help with guest list management or order processing.

If you are selling a product or service, the VA receptionist will share information about your service and try to generate leads based on your demand.

4. HR Support

There is no doubt you struggle with onboarding new recruits or with the hiring process if you do not have a dedicated HR team or a sufficient budget. An HR virtual assistant is expert enough to handle your employees, start the hiring process if necessary, screen the best candidates for you, and help with the onboarding process.

The more experienced virtual HR can train the new employees to help with compensation and benefits for the staff. If there are any conflicts in the internal team, the general VA can also solve them.

5. Appointment Scheduling

It is very common for many business owners to miss important meetings because there are conflicts in multiple meeting times, or they just forget about scheduling appointments. Here, a general virtual personal assistant with great organizational skills can help you by becoming your personal virtual assistant.

They can schedule appointments with your clients and update them on the calendar. They set reminders for you and your team to remember so you do not miss any important meetings or lose any deals.

6. Cold Calling

Some general virtual assistants are experts in outgoing calls. They may experience communicating with customers through cold calls. Hence, they play an important role in lead generation.

If you want a VA who can give you basic administrative support as well as cold calls, then check for their experience. A cold caller virtual assistant must have excellent communication skills and know how to pitch to potential customers.

7. Customer Service

Every business core has the highest customer satisfaction, and customer service needs to be top-notch. An expert virtual general assistant who has a great interpersonal skill to engage in conversation knows how to solve the pain point of the customer, and can offer great customer service.

Here, the main work they do is as virtual receptionists. By cold calling or receiving incoming calls, they listen to customer inquiries and try to solve them.

8. Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping is an important responsibility to handle as it is related to expense management. You need someone who is familiar with basic bookkeeping, and inventory management, has good budget management skills, and knows basic mathematical terms.

A general virtual assistant can do all of these for you. They can prepare financial records, draft and send invoices, and follow up on payments. The best part is that the bookkeeping VA uses several bookkeeping management tools such as QuickBooks and many more.

If you need a dedicated budget management VA, then you can look for a quickbooks virtual assistant.

9. Email Management

When your mail inbox is overflowing, and you are missing out on your important mail, get help from your virtual general assistant.

Additionally, they can do email marketing to your potential clients or customers to keep them updated. If necessary, they automate sending emails and schedule the time, so none of your customers miss the latest news from you.

Next to outreach to the B2B clients, your email management VA may reach them with cold emails and get you more leads. They write the email content themselves with an engaging subject line, as they possess writing skills, too.

10. Transcription

You are missing important notes after you finish a meeting, where a transcription general virtual assistant can handover you every pinpoint detail.

Most often after you finish a long meeting, or may simply want some information from an audio content, all these take time. But if you hire a general VA and appoint him to do transcription for you, your problem can be solved.

The VA may use several digital tools on a PC, or laptop to transcribe content into a written format remotely. For example, transcribing lectures, interviews, customer call documents, or podcasts.

11. Travel Plans & Travel Arrangements

Being a small business owner or a solopreneur you need to handle all responsibilities in one hand, where making frequent travel arrangements is an extra burden.

A virtual general travel assistant can make travel plans for business trips or personal tours. From selecting a destination to booking air tickets and hotels, your VA will do everything for you. You only need to go on the trip and relax.

12. Event Planning

For your virtual events, it require proper planning, time setting, updating everyone, and sending reminders. All these take time for a successful event. A general virtual assistant can prepare all the arrangements for your virtual event.

They can select the right virtual platform for you and your guest so everyone can comfortably join the meeting. The VA may also host the event if you want. Also, make presentations and slides on behalf of you.

13. Social Media Management

Social media dominates to make your business online presence strong and reach everyone. But it takes effort, time, and consistency.

A general social media management virtual assistant knows how to present your brand on different platforms and manage social media accounts. They create content suitable for different social channels, write captions, and announce your new service. They consistently engage in comments or inquiries from your followers to build a strong relationship with them.

A good example here can be a virtual assistant for the influencer who dedicatedly handles the influencer’s online presence and engages with followers. A general VA can do this for your business’s online identity.

14. Marketing Support

A stronger marketing strategy and following it precisely decides whether your business can reach the right and broader audience or not. A general marketing virtual assistant can give marketing support to your company remotely.

They have expertise in creating a marketing strategy based on the business’s specific conditions and requirements. The VA utilizes content marketing, social media marketing, website management, host events, and so on.

15. Technical Support

General technical virtual assistant well known for several technical issues such as troubleshooting, software installs, or updates. They even can give customers technical information or talk users through maintenance processes remotely. They help customers by giving technical assistance to resolve technical problems.

To give technical support, the general VA understands the product or service, as well as the hardware, software, network, or system components involved. The VA has the ability to identify the cause of a problem and fix it.

16. CRM Management

A general virtual assistant manages CRM (customer relationship management), and works as a CRM manager too to guide customers through decisions. The whole time the VA becomes a trusted advisor of the customer. Their focus stays on customer satisfaction and loyalty with a keen goal to ensure customer service and marketing work together.

Moreover, the virtual general helper communicates with potential customers and keeps them updated on products and services.

Verdict

A general virtual assistant is most beneficial for businesses that can not focus on more business opportunities because of daily administrative duties repetitive, and routine tasks. A VA from data entry, appointment scheduling, and bookkeeping to CRM management can do everything based on your demand to save you valuable time.