What is a Virtual Assistant?
Have you ever wondered about hiring a virtual assistant for your business? You may have, cause according to statistics from 99firms, more than 80% of business owners in the US want to use a flexible remote workforce in the future.
This is because people are redefining what the work culture should be, and the traditional 9 am to 5 pm office job is slowly being replaced by remote workers who are more flexible with timing and cost less.
However, one of the reasons why business owners sometimes do not hire virtual assistants is because they are unsure of what duties they can assign to a remote assistant.
The tasks of a virtual assistant that you can assign to him are many and diversified. Some of these are administrative assistance, technical assistance, accounting assistance, social media management, and appointment management. It can also cover creative services like graphics designing or video editing.
The Duties of a Virtual Assistant
To give you a more clear idea about what your virtual assistant can do for you, let's discuss some of these responsibilities in more detail.
Administrative Duties
Managing a business can be hectic, it's not a job rather it's a lifestyle. As a business owner, you have to deal with your clients, manage operations, set up meetings, travel for business purposes, and do much more!
For your life to be a bit easier, you need someone to organize your calendar, schedule meetings, book travel, and even answer calls.
This is where an administrative virtual assistant can help you out. They are just like secretaries except that they are virtual and will help you out with any administrative tasks that you might have.
There are more than 3.3 million secretaries and administrative assistants in the US alone, and while not all of them are virtual many entrepreneurs believe that soon, most of these jobs will be done virtually.
E-commerce
If you are an eCommerce business owner who owns an online shop in Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, etc. Hiring a virtual assistant for your eCommerce store can be very helpful.
More than 50% of today's eCommerce businesses use virtual assistants for their stores. As they are very cost-effective.
VAs that specialize in handling eCommerce stores can help you with listing your products and optimizing the product pages, processing orders, inventory management, tracking orders, customer care service, and much more.
Bookkeeping
Small businesses often face a lot of challenges with bookkeeping and accounting. If you own a small business, you will be familiar with how hard it is to keep a comprehensive accounting record in order to calculate revenue and profit and pay proper taxes.
But having a full-time accountant in your workplace or hiring a CPA firm can be costly. A cheaper alternative is to hire a bookkeeping virtual assistant for your business.
Your accountant VA with the right qualifications can keep records of daily financial transactions, create accounting reports, manage payroll and do any other financial tasks.
Virtual Receptionist
Businesses such as taxi companies, small wholesalers, security guard companies, and local food delivery companies can hire virtual assistants for their customer care support and front desk reception.
If your business is such that your customers don't come physically to your office to buy your product or service but they do call to order or ask for queries a VA that can act as your virtual receptionist is the perfect solution!
The virtual receptionist can handle calls and queries from customers and make outbound calls as necessary.
And they will be more cost-effective than hiring one in your workplace.
Accompanying in Research
Businesses often have to conduct research and surveys. The right virtual assistants service can be your perfect solution for such tasks.
The research can be about the company's profit and internal cash flow. Or it could be research about the market, where you may have to conduct surveys.
Businesses such as restaurants, online shops, and retail businesses need to have a strong social identity and brand awareness in order for their businesses to thrive.
But such businesses will have a small budget for their digital marketing in comparison to large corporations.
Having a VA who is specialized in social media management can be a very cost-effective way to do digital marketing to create awareness among your customers and increase your sales.
Conclusion
More and more businesses are redefining the workplace culture and hiring remote assistants instead of office employees.
Virtual assistants can be a cost-effective solution for your business through which you can hire remote workers.
The duties of a virtual assistant are many and they can complete almost any tasks that can be done online.
Hopefully, this blog can give you a better understanding of what a VA does and help you hire one who is perfect for your business.