Running a business is no easy task, and as your company grows, you may find yourself taking on a seemingly overwhelming amount of responsibilities and challenges. To keep your operations running smoothly without breaking the bank, consider hiring virtual executive assistants to help lighten your workload.
By outsourcing tasks to virtual assistants, companies can decrease their costs by 78% while simultaneously improving productivity. Whether you need help with administrative duties for your law firm or customer service for your growing e-commerce business, virtual assistant outsourcing may be the solution you need to help your organization run more efficiently.
This article will look at the services that virtual executive assistants can offer to businesses and the benefits of outsourcing tasks to them. Then, we’ll also cover the various tools and software used for virtual assistant outsourcing. Let’s dive in!
What Services Can Virtual Executive Assistants Offer?
Virtual executive assistants can help with various professional functions, from more straightforward routine tasks like data entry to more complex and specialized services like medical coding. Businesses from all industries and sizes can benefit from outsourcing tasks to virtual assistants. Here are just a few of the services that VAs can provide:
Administrative Work
Most businesses hire virtual executive assistants to help with administrative tasks, encompassing many duties and responsibilities. For instance, real estate agents may work with a VA who can handle scheduling and paperwork and assist them with researching housing markets and price ranges. Travel and tourism companies may need virtual executive assistants who can answer calls and messages from clients and help with booking flights and accommodations.
Customer Service
Improving customer experience and satisfaction is vital to growing your business, and it helps to have a dedicated person or team available to talk to clients at any given time. As such, many companies hire a customer service virtual assistant to handle their clients’ needs. VAs can typically be tasked with answering customer questions, concerns, and feedback through phone, email, chat, or social media.
Social Media Management and Marketing
Social media marketing allows businesses to increase brand awareness among their target audience and boost their online reputation. This is why brands need dedicated virtual executive assistants who can create and upload content regularly and engage with potential and existing customers when they have feedback or questions.
Specialized and Industry-Specific Functions
Many virtual executive assistants are hired for more specialized functions specific to certain industries. For example, tech companies may hire virtual tech assistants to handle technical support and help desk or troubleshooting. VAs can help prepare insurance quotes and process claims in the insurance sector. Healthcare facilities may opt for virtual assistant outsourcing for medical billing and coding services.
How Can Virtual Executive Assistants Help Businesses?
Now that you are familiar with virtual executive assistants’ services, let’s talk about the benefits of working with experienced and reliable VAs. Here are just some of the advantages businesses can gain from outsourcing tasks to virtual assistants:
Increased Efficiency
One significant way virtual executive assistants help businesses is that it allows them to focus on their core operations and functions. Companies have to take on a lot of duties and responsibilities, such as research, handling customer queries, scheduling meetings, inputting and organizing data, and their main business functions.Â
With help from virtual assistant outsourcing, businesses can reduce some of their in-house employees’ workload, letting the company focus on what it does best and increasing the overall efficiency of their operations. Meanwhile, you can rest assured that professional VAs will reliably handle your non-core yet essential tasks.
Lower Costs
Hiring virtual executive assistants can allow businesses to save time and money. Unlike in-house assistants, you won’t have to worry about creating a physical office space for VAs since they work remotely. Additionally, with virtual assistant solutions, you pay only for work completed rather than by the hour, like with traditional office employees. These cost-effective solutions allow you to save more resources that can be used to improve your business further.
Greater Scalability
Many growing businesses need to quickly scale their operations due to increasing customer demand or additional workload. In these cases, outsourcing tasks to virtual assistants can provide companies with the staffing and expertise they need without going through a lengthy and costly recruitment process. VAs can quickly deal with the sudden scope increases and work on a project-by-project basis, giving businesses the flexibility to scale operations without much disruption in their ongoing operations.
6 Valuable Tools and Software Used for Virtual Assistant Solutions
Since virtual executive assistants perform a wide range of functions, they typically have access to top-of-the-line tools and software that enable them to perform their work seamlessly. Let’s look at some of the most helpful technologies utilized by VAs to benefit their clients.
#1: Time Tracking Tools
Proper time management is vital to the success of any project, which is why professional virtual executive assistants utilize time tracking tools to keep up productivity and efficiency. Clients can also use these tools to get real-time updates about their VA’s productivity and workload.Â
One excellent tool used for virtual assistant outsourcing is Time Doctor. This software comes with productivity measuring and summary reports, online timesheets and payroll, website, app, chat monitoring, and offline time tracking.Â
Using technology to help with time management allows virtual assistants to optimize their workflows and meet their targets and deadlines easily. Reliable software such as Time Doctor can enable VAs to plan their tasks, track their time on specific jobs, keep themselves and their clients updated on their progress, and even uncover areas for improvement using the data collected by the time tracking tool.
#2: Scheduling Tools
Running a business requires a lot of scheduling, from meetings and appointments to workforce management and other complex processes. Since virtual executive assistants are typically tasked with handling schedules and other similar administrative duties, using scheduling software can help ensure that the business runs smoothly.
Calendly is one example of a good scheduling tool for virtual assistant outsourcing. It has a user-friendly interface that makes appointment scheduling efficient and straightforward, helping businesses enhance service quality and stay on time for important events.
SimplyBook is scheduling software that can be very helpful for virtual executive assistants that work for service-based businesses. This tool provides the ability to add “Book Now” button widgets to websites or social media pages. It also easily syncs available time and booking transactions in the business’ calendar and enables automated booking confirmation emails.
#3: Social Media Tools
As we’ve stated previously, some virtual executive assistants provide social media management services. So, tools like Hootsuite, which allows users to integrate and more efficiently manage all of their social media interactions, can be valuable to use. This software supports integrations for all social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Instagram.
Another useful social media tool for virtual assistant outsourcing is Buzzsumo, which can be valuable for content creation. It allows you to find the most shared content for a particular topic or industry, helping you develop more innovative social media content strategies and increase brand engagement for your business.
#4: File-Sharing Tools
Documentation is essential in business, helping companies keep track of processes, transactions, and other critical paperwork. Utilizing the right file-sharing tools can allow virtual executive assistants and businesses to keep documents and other vital files well-managed and organized.
Many popular file-sharing tools are available for virtual assistant outsourcing, such as Google Drive and Dropbox. These tools are easy to use yet provide the security and reliability companies need to ensure the safety of their data and important information.
#5: Basic Graphic Design Tools
Since virtual executive assistants are sometimes tasked with social media marketing, they must create eye-catching and engaging content. And this is why user-friendly graphic design tools can come in handy. With the right graphic design software, VAs can create images, posters, and other promotional materials that social media users want to interact with and share.
Adobe Photoshop is one popular graphic design software, best for high-quality image creation and manipulation. For virtual executive assistants who aren’t well-versed in Photoshop or are still learning graphic design, Canva can be a helpful alternative. Canva has basic templates and simple designs that are easy to edit and use for social media posts.
#6: Document-Signing Tools
These days, more and more businesses are going paperless. Essential documents like contracts can now be sent and signed online using document-signing tools. Virtual executive assistants usually have access to software like Adobe Acrobat Reader or DocuSign to officially sign paperwork digitally or send a document and have someone else sign it. These tools make document signing and organization more straightforward and hassle-free.
Connect With a Reliable Provider of Virtual Assistant Outsourcing
Understanding what virtual executive assistants do and how they help your business thrive is only the first step. Your next move should be to partner with a provider that offers virtual assistant outsourcing so that you can start reaping the productivity-enhancing and cost-effective benefits that these services have to offer. And this is why SuperStaff is here to help!
SuperStaff provides the outsourced solutions businesses need to drive all aspects of their operations to optimum productivity. We offer a wide range of back-office support services, including virtual assistant solutions.Â
To ensure that our VAs provide the best possible service, we utilize top-of-the-line technologies, tools, and software, such as Time Doctor, for time tracking and management. Reach out today, and let’s talk about how we can help empower your business!
