Key Tasks to Outsource to a Virtual Assistant

In today's fast-paced business environment, companies are constantly seeking ways to streamline their operations, reduce costs, and enhance productivity. One effective solution that has gained immense popularity is-Outsourcing. There are two ways to outsource tasks:

•  Regular Outsourcing
• Admin Services Outsourcing

While both regular outsourcing and Admin services outsourcing involve contracting out tasks to external service providers, they differ in their scope, impact on the business, and the types of functions they target.

Admin Services Outsourcing involves outsourcing various tasks to virtual assistant. Virtual Assistant Service, also known as virtual assistance, offer a flexible and cost-effective solution for businesses of all sizes. These skilled professionals can handle a wide range of tasks, allowing business owners, Leaders like CXO’s ,VPs, Sr. VPs, Directors, Department heads, and Senior managers to focus on strategic initiatives and core business activities.

Most common traits and skills that are highly valuable to excel in Admin services outsourcing are organizational skills, communication skills, attention to detail and so on. These traits can help ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and client satisfaction in delivering administrative support services.

Admin services outsourcing tasks falls under two categories.

• General Admin Support Services
• Specialized Admin Services

General Admin Support

This includes regular Admin Support functions like:

• • Administrative support
• • Data Entry and Management:
• • Bookkeeping and Accounting:
• • Customer Support and Communication
• • Social Media Management
• • Content Creation and Editing
• • Research and Market Analysis
• • Travel and Event Planning:
• • Email Marketing Campaigns

Specialized Admin Support

This includes functions like:

• • Finance Support
• • Recruitment Support
• • Design and development
• • Research support
• • Business Support
• • SharePoint Administration
• • Vendor Management
• • Purchase Order Management
• • Website and Portal Support
• • System testing/UAT
• • CMS / CRC / SEO Support
• • Data extraction / Report tracking
• • Ticket Tracking
• • Live Chat support

In this blog post, we will explore some of the key tasks that can be outsourced to virtual assistant services and the benefits of doing so:

1. Administrative Support:

One of the primary functions of virtual Assistant services is to provide comprehensive Administrative support. This includes tasks such as managing emails, scheduling appointments, organizing calendars, and handling phone calls. Virtual assistants can efficiently manage these routine Administrative tasks, ensuring that your business operations run smoothly.

2. Data Entry and Management:

Data entry can be time-consuming and tedious, yet it's essential for maintaining accurate records. Virtual Admin services can assist with data entry tasks, whether it's updating customer information, inputting financial data, or managing inventory records. This frees up your in-house team to focus on more strategic responsibilities.

4. Customer Support and Communication:

Maintaining excellent customer relationships is key to business success. Virtual Assistant Service can handle customer inquiries, respond to emails, and provide customer support services. They can ensure that customers receive prompt and helpful responses, enhancing your brand's reputation.

5. Social Media Management:

In the digital age, a strong online presence is essential for businesses. Virtual Assistant services can manage your social media accounts, create and schedule posts, respond to comments and messages, and track social media analytics. This ensures that your brand remains active and engaged with your audience across various platforms.

6. Content Creation and Editing:

Creating high-quality content is vital for marketing and branding efforts. Virtual Assistant services with writing and editing skills can assist in content creation, including blog posts, articles, newsletters, and marketing materials. They can also proofread and edit existing content to ensure it's error-free and aligns with your brand's voice and message.

8. Travel and Event Planning:

If your business involves frequent travel or event management, virtual Assistant services can assist in making travel arrangements, booking accommodations, and planning events or conferences. This allows you to focus on the content and objectives of the trip or event, while the logistics are expertly managed.

9. Email Marketing Campaigns:

Email marketing is a powerful tool for reaching your target audience. Virtual Assistant services can design email campaigns, create content, segment your email lists, and track the performance of your campaigns. This ensures that your email marketing efforts are effective and yield results.

Specialized Admin Support

Let’s discuss in detail some of the specialized admin support services.

1. Finance Support

This comes under specialized admin support services. This includes

• • Finance and Budget support
• • Business Object reports
• • Extract data and report tracking
• • Expense reports
• • Creating P&L statements
• • Billing queries
• • Analyze actuals vs. forecast
• • Compare expenses vs budget
• • Cost center and Profit center reports
• • Invoice and payment reconciliation

2. Recruitment Support:

Recruiting can be time-consuming. Recruitment Support is offered by HR specialist VA .They offer support in following fields

• Screening – including posting ads on job sites, Talent assessment, Scheduling interviews (onsite/remote), coordinating for hiring requirements, Interview scheduling etc.,

• Hiring – including preparing employment agreement, Coordination for signatures, documents gathering, Coordinating between the selected candidates and recruiter, Track and report candidate status etc.,

• Onboarding including ID creation, Asset allocation and Seating arrangement, Induction and Training, Mandatory training completion etc.,

• Off boarding including managing exit formalities & exit interviews, Asset retrieval process and Off boarding from the system.

3. Research and Market Analysis:

Market research is crucial for making informed business decisions. Virtual Assistant services can conduct market research, gather data, and create reports to help you better understand your target audience, industry trends, and competitors. This valuable information can guide your business strategy.

4. Bookkeeping and Accounting:

Maintaining accurate financial records is crucial for any business. Virtual Assistant services can help with bookkeeping tasks such as recording expenses, managing invoices, and reconciling accounts. They can work closely with your accountant to ensure that your financial data is well-organized and up to date.

Benefits of Outsourcing to Virtual Assistant Services:

Now that we've explored some of the key tasks that can be outsourced to Virtual Assistant Services, let's delve into the benefits of doing so:

1. Cost Savings: Virtual Assistant Services are cost-effective compared to hiring full-time employees. You only pay for the services you need, eliminating expenses such as office space, benefits, and training.

2. Flexibility: Virtual assistants can work on a project basis or part-time, providing flexibility to scale up or down as your business needs change.

3. Expertise: Virtual Assistant Services often have specialized skills and experience, ensuring that tasks are handled efficiently and professionally.

4. Time Savings: By delegating routine tasks to virtual assistants, you can free up valuable time to focus on strategic aspects of your business.

5. Increased Productivity: Virtual Assistant Services can handle tasks quickly and efficiently, boosting overall productivity within your organization.

6. Access to a Global Talent Pool: You can tap into a global talent pool, allowing you to find virtual assistants with the specific skills and expertise your business requires.

7. Reduced Administrative Burden: Outsourcing Administrative tasks means you don't have to worry about hiring, training, or managing additional in-house staff.

8. Scalability: As your business grows, you can easily scale your virtual assistant services up or down to meet changing demands.

Virtual Assistant Services offer a versatile and cost-effective solution for businesses looking to streamline operations and increase efficiency. By outsourcing tasks such as Administrative support, data entry, social media management, content creation, and more, you can free up valuable time and resources to focus on strategic initiatives and business growth. The benefits of outsourcing to virtual assistant services are numerous, making it a smart choice for businesses of all sizes and industries.

Also Read: Challenges in assigning tasks to Virtual Assistants and how to overcome them

How can Brickwork help you?

Brickwork is a boutique firm that pioneered the concept of Virtual Assistant Services

Brickwork’s shared service offerings have evolved from just handling transactional activities to catering to a lot of skilled project needs under the same umbrella.

Admin CoE (Centre of Excellence) Model offered by Brickwork helps businesses solve their talent shortages and help them move up the value-chain.

You can use services of Brickwork by outsourcing the key tasks to Virtual Assistants. Virtual assistance services from Brickwork, can help SMEs and large businesses save time, reduce overhead costs, access specialized skills, and improve overall productivity. This allows business owners and teams to focus on strategic goals and core business functions, ultimately contributing to business growth and success. 

Add your requirements to the enquiry cart and let our virtual assistants handle the rest of your tasks seamlessly.

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!

Visit us at: www.brickworkindia.com