Essentially individuals or companies use virtual assistant services as a way to do more with less. Virtual assistant services can be provided by an individual or a company. The best way to think about how you would use a service like this is to consider your daily activities. Do you think that you could use an extra hand calling customers, logging information into a database, preparing for a major presentation or, on a more personal level, sending out invitations or even Christmas cards?
There are all kinds of services like these, both provided by locals, as well as global individuals and companies. What has made these services so readily available? Cheap technology. The Internet has opened up this market to an ever expanding market of both users and providers of the service. With the cheap cost of Internet connectivity and laptops, it’s easy to justify hiring an individual who is not physically located in your office.
How do you choose from the entire myriad of virtual assistant services? The best way to choose is to ask some simple questions of yourself. Do you want to manage the assistant or have a company manage him or her for your? What type of work do you need performed? For example, do you need a telemarketer or a researcher; a person to answer calls or just someone to respond to emails? What is your budget? Can you afford to pay for a person that’s in your home country or is your budget more in line with hiring from another “less expensive” country?
Let’s dive down a little further into these questions. Regardless of whether you choose a local, i.e. “in country” based person or a virtual assistant in the Philippines, Russia, China, etc., that person will need to be “managed.” For example, you’ll need to keep track of their hours and their output. Did he / she finish the assigned task within the time frame allotted? Was the work of quality substance or do you need to “fix” it afterwards? If you’re not one to manage your resource, then you’ll probably want to go with a company who will manage the resource for you.
The type of work performed by virtual assistant services is also a key consideration. Some of the services only offer answering type services. What this means is that they’ll answer your phones both during and after business hours or take a message. Other types of virtual assistant services only offer outbound call center functions, such as calling a lead list or responding to telemarketing queries. In this case, you’ll need to make sure to match the virtual assistant service to the needs that you have.
There’s also another very important consideration. The geographic location of the virtual assistant service can be a deal maker or breaker. This is really both a “national” and “budget” consideration. Regardless of what country you live in, you probably feel a need to support your country’s economy. However, you are also well aware of the cost benefits of working with a provider who may not reside in your country. The difference in cost could be as high as a factor of 5 or 6. Only you can make that determination.
Virtual assistant services are not for everyone. Some people still feel the need to see the person report to the office. I’ve been using virtual assistants for many years now, both located in the same country, as well as abroad. I can honestly tell you that they free up your time. If you’d like more info on this topic, feel free to leave a comment. I’ll be sure to reply.
Read more articles from David Chan, including Small Business Opportunities Powering America.
