Guide
Table Of Contents
Choosing the right virtual assistant solution plays a huge role in your business’s success, productivity, and work-life balance. We get that so, we’ve created this guide to help you gain a better understanding of how our managed virtual assistant service approach can give you greater leverage and maximize your efficiency.
We’ll dive into the following topics:
- How you can leverage an assistant
- Getting virtual assistants set up with your tools
- How we train your assistant to excel at your projects
- Best practices for working with your VA
- Our process for minimizing the impact of time off and turnover
- Scaling support to meet your changing needs
1How You Can Leverage An Assistant
Since our experience spans several industries, our assistants are capable of tackling a wide variety of tasks to meet your needs. Our service is fully customizable to meet your business’s needs. However, our assistants are pre-trained on the following tasks and processes.
When working with organizations, we handle processes in three core areas:
Business Admin
All of our virtual assistants are trained on standard administrative tasks including:
- Calendar management
- Travel management
- Expense Reporting
- Call screening
- Professional networking support
Sales Support
Our VAs empower you to spend more time with prospects by offloading tedious tasks, including:
- CRM management
- Campaign management
- Prospect research and list building
- Note-taking
- Email management
- Lead and prospect management
Operational Support
We enable you to work more efficiently by ensuring all of your data is standardized and up-to-date and helping with other tedious, processes-driven tasks such as:
- Data entry
- Work-flow support
- Data verification and cleaning
- Documentation preparation
- On-boarding and off-boarding support
This is just a snapshot of the work our virtual assistants can do for you. You’ll work with an account executive to create a customized solution and an implementation plan that guides the first two months of service. After that, your Engagement Manager will help your team offload additional projects as your business needs evolve.
2Getting Virtual Assistants Set Up with Your Tools
Here are some common Q & A’s people have about getting their Quickskill assistants set up with their systems.
Do you support [insert tool]?
Your assistant can use any online tool that you use. You can check out our tools database for a list of the tools we use most frequently.
If you use a tool that we don’t have experience with, we’ll just ask you to quickly share your screen to walk us through how you use it. Then, we’ll do some additional research about the tool and train your Quickskill assistant to use it.
Can you help me adopt [insert tool]?
Yes, our Engagement Managers regularly set up CRMs, task management software, and other tools. We also teach your Quickskill virtual assistants how to use those tools.
How do I give my assistant access to my tools?
You will give your login info to your Engagement Manager. They will add your logins to the password-sharing tool, LastPass Enterprise, and use that to securely give your primary and backup assistants access.
How do I ensure the VAs won’t cause any issues within our systems?
Since all of our assistants can only access your systems while they’re working on Quickskill-owned computers, we have significant oversight and security measures in place.
Is a quickskill Virtual Assistant Right for You?
3How We Train Your Assistant to Excel at Your Processes
Getting your assistants up-to-speed on your processes is quick and easy. We pre-train our assistants on a variety of processes. Many of our accounts find that the training we provide encompasses most of what they want their assistants to know. As a result, you may only have to train your assistants in two areas:
1. Your company policies as they pertain to the work your assistants are doing.
For example: If VAs are helping you with expense reports, share your company policies regarding deadlines and how to file them.
2. People’s individual preferences for the tasks they offload.
For example: You may prefer to have most of your meetings in the afternoons, have documents formatting a specific way, and have other preferences that are unique to you.
If you’re offloading custom processes to your assistant, you’ll need to train your assistant on how to do those tasks. To do so, you (or someone on your team) just need to schedule a training call with your assistant and Engagement Manager. We’ll record the call, document the process, and ensure your assistant understands how to complete it.
4Minimizing the Impact of PTO + Turnover
If you’ve had an assistant before, you know how difficult it is to suddenly go without support while your assistant is out of the office or, even worse, when they quit. These kinds of disruptions can have a substantial negative impact on your your productivity and efficiency. So, we actively prevent time-off and turnover from interrupting the service our accounts receive. Here’s how:
1. We train back-up assistants.
When your primary assistant is out of the office, a back-up who fully understands all your tools and processes will take over, so you never go a business day without support. The back-up assistants have access to a detailed member manual that documents all of your tasks and preferences so that you receive the same speed and quality of support.
2. We invest in employee retention.
Unlike in-house assistants who change jobs on average every eight months, most of our assistants stay with us for many years. We offer performance-based bonuses, recognition programs, employee-driven wellness activities, and professional and skill development opportunities.
Even if your assistant does decide to move on, we’ll have a replacement trained and ready before they leave to ensure you have a smooth transition.
Is a quickskill Virtual Assistant Right for You?
How to Hire a Virtual Assistant
There are several ways to engage a remote virtual assistant. There are three broad categories for hiring:
- Directly hiring a freelancer in-country or overseas from a job board.
- Use a contract virtual assistant agency.
- Use a managed virtual assistant service provider.
There are pros and cons for each model of hiring, and finding the right approach depends on your needs, your resources, and the amount of time and money you want to invest.
Hiring a Freelancer
Hiring a freelancer, especially overseas, is usually the least expensive route, and the dollar goes a long way in countries like India and the Philippines.
Freelancers will likely cost more, communication is sometimes easier, and depending on your arrangement and your need for synchronous work the time zones can be an issue.
Hiring a freelancer is also the highest risk option in terms of quality control, reliability, and accountability as freelancers can have other priority clients or commitments that keep them from meeting deadlines. Sometimes freelancers just disappear.
It’s also the model with the most significant lift on you.
You recruit, interview, hire, train, pay, and manage the virtual assistant. Most freelancers work from home offices and IT security can be a concern.
Finally, finding a freelancer with experience using your sales tools—CRM, project management, etc. can be challenging.
About Freelance Marketplaces
You can also hire a virtual assistant through a freelance marketplace. This model is typically used for short-term projects, not ongoing relationships. That is starting to change.
You have the same risks as with a freelancer, though the marketplace can mitigate some risks of poor quality and missed deadlines.
These freelancers are often getting multiple projects from multiple clients, so consistent availability can also be a challenge.
Using a Contract Agency
Using a contract virtual assistant agency will usually get you a vetted virtual assistant with a validated resume and track record.
As with a freelancer, performance management and training with a contract agency are up to you, and it really depends on how much time you can and want to invest in those responsibilities.
Contractors can also have multiple clients unless you plan to engage the assistant 40 hours a week. There are several contract agencies with overseas and/or U.S.-based virtual assistants
This model will be a bit more expensive than hiring a freelancer directly, especially if the assistants are in the U.S. Most work in home offices with home computers and again, security can be a concern.
As with freelancers, it could take longer to find a VA that knows your sales tools.
Managed Virtual Assistant Service
With a managed virtual assistant service, the service provider recruits, hires, trains, and manages the virtual assistants on your tools and processes.
The assistants are full-time employees of the service provider. Many also train backup assistants to make sure you’re always covered. Account managers monitor performance and client satisfaction and work with you to offload more and more processes to the assistant as they get to know your business.
There’s no direct management on your part.
Most managed service providers use virtual assistants offshore, but instead of working from a home office, the assistants work in secure facilities with encrypted networks and company-owned computers.
With this model, you are able to engage a virtual assistant in a few days with no management or training needed on your part.
Spend More Time Selling
Virtual assistants can help you free up more time to sell, and prevent you from paying yourself to do all of your own admin work.
VAs can also streamline your sales processes to improve overall operational efficiency by keeping your CRM current, documenting all sales processes, and updating sales materials.
Looking for help finding a virtual assistant? Let’s chat about your needs today.
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