What Is A Virtual Assistant

The Definition

A virtual assistant is a specialised person, who acts like an executive assistant who provides administrative work and office support on a remote basis. They usually work as an independent contractor, a freelancer, or some are hired as full-time remote workers. Virtual assistants are employed by companies of all sizes and across many industries.

What Does a Virtual Assistant Do?

1. What is a Virtual Assistant

Administrative work

Virtual assistants are most commonly hired for admin work. This includes scheduling meetings, booking travel, organizing calendars, and even answering phones via a connecting line.

Bookkeeping

Keeping track of finances is an essential part of running a profitable business, and virtual assistants can help manage a budget, make purchases, and track expenses.

PA (Personal assistant)

Virtual assistants can help organize tasks outside of work, in addition to their standard duties. Booking vacations, organizing a calendar, and purchasing gifts for friends and family are some of the more common personal duties.

Customer service Representitive

For companies offering a product or service, virtual assistants can be the first point of contact for customers looking for assistance with troubleshooting or an outlet for feedback. Virtual assistants can address basic, habitual concerns or give tutorials. If they are unable to help a customer, they can escalate it to the appropriate person within the company.

Data entry

Not all tasks fall under the umbrella of admin work; there is a wide variety of responsibilities that virtual assistants can take on, including data entry. In this role, a virtual assistant can easily compile data, check for accuracy, and delete unnecessary records. This is especially beneficial for patient recording, billing, postal work, and school administration.

Social media production

While many companies understand the importance of online engagement with potential customers or clients, the demands of social media management can sometimes seem endless. Virtual assistants are helpful for responding to comments and communicating with followers, but they can also maintain a posting schedule and even analyze account data.

Content management

If you use editorial content to drive traffic to your site, increase brand awareness, and engage potential customers, then you likely know the immense amount of work that goes into operations. A virtual assistant can help manage a production calendar, organize writing resources, and facilitate various elements of the publishing process, making it easier for you to focus on growing the content program.

Research

Every business must rely on research to inform its operations, whether it’s an analysis of the market, customers, or performance. Research, too, can be a commodity to sell to clients. But research can be a time-consuming endeavor, even with dedicated resources, so some companies use virtual assistants to assist with compiling this information. Because these tasks are typically more manual, they’re best suited to virtual assistants specialized in data analysis.

Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant

Save Salary Cost

Hiring a VA as opposed to hiring a full-time employee for a small job, you could choose to outsource it to someone at an hourly rate or agree to a flat rate. Especially for seasonal businesses, hiring VA means, they don’t have to carry monthly salary costs, but ‘Pay As You Need’. And the lower pay isn’t the only way you can benefit from hiring a VA.

Save Training Cost

A business owner has to spend a lot on training for its full-time/part-time employees. An experienced member of staff has to spend quite significant time to train up a new starter.

When it comes to VAs, many are already specialised and holding high-degree of qualification, so they can remain competitive in their chosen industry. 

This way, a business owner doesn’t have to waste time and money training them – they can get started right away with his chosen VA.

Save Time

For a small business, it’s usually the situation that one member of staff covers multiple roles. For example, a business with no HR department will spend so much of a manager’s time to post job ads, draft hiring contract, or company policies.

With the hire of a VA, there’s a time saver for the business managers, who can stay focused only on tasks you’re specialised in. No more wasting time on non-core tasks. A win-win situation for everyone involved.

Take a look at KS Virtual Assistant’s service offer, and get in touch through WhatsApp today to get your quote!