What are the ways of finding THE Virtual Assistant (VA) organization who can go that extra mile to help you?

How can you identify and assess the organization who can be your true partner - reliable, credible and aligned to your goals and needs. How can this partner impact your business?

Who can help allay fears and give you the confidence and assurance that “they are there for you”?

In today’s technology-enabled connected world, help is just a click away. Accessing people, tools and infrastructure resources to support your business is easier than ever before. Enough time and money been is invested in the development and deployment of support structures, frameworks which can effectively support organization and business worldwide in solving tasks and challenges.

The paradigm, “Act Local, Think Global”, has been implemented in its true context with the convergence of multiple support organizations and professionals from across the globe. Thinking global is no more a broad, undefined, unsafe horizon. This has led to the global community leveraging expertise from various countries regardless of time zones and cultural barriers. With long term sustainable growth as the primary focus, businesses are forging long-term alliances and contracts with virtual support teams.

Now, the question – What are the ways of finding THE Virtual Assistant (VA) and support organization who can go that extra mile to help you? How can you identify and assess the organization that can be your true partner - reliable, credible and aligned to your goals and needs. How can this partner impact your business? Who can help allay fears and give you the confidence and assurance that “they are there for you”?

These questions do cross your mind and rather it should, since you do deserve the quality and value for money, minus any risk. Let us now find ways and means of understanding the virtual support space and how you need to think in order to find a genuine service provider.

Look for these when you take that first look at a VA service provider: Global recognition, ability to blend technology in VA engagements, adaptive and customizable business models, comprehensive service portfolio, experience in working across a wide array of industry segments, a client-centric approach in delivering VA solutions, robust workforce which can stand up to any challenge and deliver results on demand - all of which that helps you do business better and faster.

Next Steps

The focus should be to look for a Virtual Assistance organization that can function as a valued partner enabling you to drive executive efficiencies and effectiveness towards positive business outcomes. A partner who can work and align with your strategic vision and blend with your business strategy to bring about expected results. When you build your alliance strategy with your partner, ensure that you have an engagement model which can be refined over a period of time to help you ramp up and advance to the next level of performance.

Let us now visualize the Executive Decision Framework which enables you identify the reasons to look for a Virtual Assistance partner.

Identify the business which truly matters, this is your core. This might look a bit challenging upfront, when you define the areas that deliver high value and which has a direct impact on the organization’s bottom line, you have zeroed into defining the marquee area of focus. This is where you entire productive bandwidth should be spent and nurtured. The high value business areas gives you direct revenue, the rest of the areas are your non-core and can provide in-direct revenue. 

Choosing your virtual assistance partner should be a carefully drawn-out process. A wrong move can be disastrous for your business and can have a toxic impact on your daily operations. You need to heighten your awareness of your business realities and find a service provider who has the functional and business enabling processes to strategically align to your imperatives. The provider should also bring to the table thought leadership in enabling virtual support either as an outsourced/off shored/shared service or a combination of all three. They should also be able to seamlessly integrate different service lines along with its extensive capabilities to your business processes and meet specific goals.

Determine the Virtual Assistance intervention areas, find out the key executives who would need it, the areas they need assistance and the size, scope and scale of support required.

Find out the ways of implementing the virtual support solution, sketch out the applicable steps, have structures and processes in place and ensure that you have a plan to assess your decision outcomes. This framework will give you valuable insights on how to think through various parameters before embracing a Virtual Assistance support partner. It will also help in answering most of the questions listed in the beginning of this article.

Virtual Assistance Partner Characteristics – The DNA

Considering these facts can help you take a prudent decision, gives you the cognizance and clarity in choosing a service provider who has the size, resource scale and expertise to guarantee predictability and certainty in delivery.

1. Your partner should strategically fit into your business backbone and must have the service capabilities to map to your long term business goals.
2. They also should have proven expertise in managing large man hours of delivering Virtual Assistance services and exposure across various industry segments.
3. The provider must have a strong internal virtual assistant performance evaluation mechanism to continuously analyze performance standards, along with a strong client feedback channel to assess virtual assistant service delivery outcomes.

Remember, more the tangible facets in governing the virtual assistant performance, more robust the service delivery. As the engagement matures, the partner should also be able to support you in sustaining service continuum by having a road for higher value creation. This can include cost, infrastructure offerings, thought leadership in identifying new business areas for Virtual Assistance, service scalability, resource diversity, ability to offer consulting services in VA space and a strong training regime to hone virtual assistants and make them capable of adapting to changing business needs. 

The above characteristics should also work hand in glove with certain key fundamentals which can firm up the overall delivery model of the Virtual Assistance provider.

Value Driven Work Environment: A Virtual Assistance firm which is built on a strong value system showcases more commitment, drive and focus enabling better results. This helps in building a strong work culture which can facilitate self-growth and learning, yielding higher levels of productivity from its employees.

Data Security: A Virtual Assistance organization must be an ISO 27001 certified firm. This ensures the organization has implemented a strong information security policy with contractual safeguards and physical security. The organization would also have ensured the infrastructure is engineered to eliminate all possible leaks of information.

Process and Performance Management: Strong process management measures to ensure responsiveness and readiness across teams to adapt and change to the operational needs of the client. Also, it ensures the VA teams can align and be flexible to various business situations of the client. The measures should also guarantee optimization of VA effort and assure concrete delivery outcomes. The VA organization should also have efficient performance management framework that can manage, monitor and maximize operational performance for optimal results.

People Practice: When a VA organization has a strong people practice, it ensures that there is a deeper relationship between the organizational entity and the employee. It also drives a high performance culture and an ecosystem which is open, engaging, opportunity focussed and value driven. The organization should also have a result-orientated training and coaching framework focussed on evolving the virtual assistant and enabling excellence, since they are the source of productive gain and competitive edge.

Strong Leadership: A few qualities differentiate a good VA organization’s leadership from the rest. These include, industry knowledge, ability to build a large and diverse teams of virtual assistants enabling engagement scale, well-versed in technology, business, engagement models and a sound knowledge of how to drive cost optimization measures (YOY operational savings of 60-65%) for the client and ensuring customer delight.

The Virtual Assistant Organization You Can Choose

A good VA organization is more focussed on relationships, there is a constant endeavour to go beyond individual projects and help the client succeed in his business. The organization is willing to understand your business landscape, whether it is complex or simple. They are also able to bring in a customized enterprise VA strategy and has a proven record of helping clients across the globe. They can effectively define their service objectives and are capable of producing tangible value which is transformational in nature. 

Hope, you would have now got a fair idea on how to select a Virtual Assistance organization which can help your business grow and prosper. If you still have any questions and need more clarity on how Virtual Assistants can help your business, please do get in touch with us.  We would be glad to assist you!

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