A virtual assistant service can be the difference between reaching for your goals and accomplishing them. Whether you need help with your marketing plan or simply schedule some meetings with your clients, VAs can easily take charge of the tasks you assign them and commit to them until they are resolved positively.
In this post, you will learn the process of working with a virtual assistant. The process will help you get the most out of your newly hired service and can let you understand why hiring virtual assistants is better than hiring regular employees. You will also find tips and tricks in each subtopic to help you in your journey with a VA.
Virtual Assistant Service: The Process
Establish clear goals
The first step you need to tackle when hiring a virtual assistant is to define clear goals. These goals must include all of those tasks your company needs to complete before a specific time. The more you know about what your company needs, the more detailed you can be in your consultation. These details will help the agency you are contacting and allow them to present the best candidate for the position you are looking for.
After the initial interview, you must constantly communicate with your new VA. Suppose you have specific processes or results you want the virtual assistant service to follow. In that case, you will have to say so to your VA, so they can make arrangements and start developing strategies to acquire the desired results.
Tip: Try using SMART goals.
Elaborate a plan
It is no secret that your chances of succeeding increase widely whenever you make a plan. You can apply that same principle when working with a virtual assistant. VAs are workers who like to stick to a schedule. Since they often work with several clients, their time management is over average, and you may need to adopt this skill into your everyday life if you are not used to it.
Your plan needs to include your goals, content ideas, and a general direction of what and how you want to achieve in a particular time. For example, if you decide to go with a virtual marketer, you can devise a plan in which you want to increase the potential visitors to your websites. So, you already have the goal, get more visits. The how depends on each company, but it could be to improve your website's SEO or get more backlinks for your company. We can't stress this enough, the more you communicate with your VA, the better results you will get.
Tip: Use a calendar or a planner like Trello or Google Spaces.
Communicate with your VA
As we mentioned, communication is key to an excellent virtual assistant service. Virtual assistants use a lot of channels in which you can connect with them regardless of the time of day. Some of them are even located in other parts of the world, providing you with a possible 24/7 service, if that is what you desire. Email, apps, chats, and phones are some of the most common channels VAs use to communicate with their clients.
If you feel the communication between your VA and your company is not the best, you can talk to their agency, and they will find a solution that will work best for your business. The most important thing is that you trust your VA. With your trust, your VA can do wonders for your company.
Tip: Talk to your VA about their preferred channels and which one to use in an emergency. Remember to respect their schedule.
Check Results
Regardless if you hired a VA as a full-time employee or a temporary worker, it comes a time when you need to track their progress and check their results. Some metrics are easy to analyze, like getting new followers or balancing your books. But others need to be interpreted, like the effectiveness of a CTA or an Adwords campaign. Virtual assistants can present reports in which all your relevant KPIs will be present—providing you with the best information analysis and next steps.
Just as you were clear on the goals you wanted to achieve, you must also understand that some may take a little more time than others. Moreover, sometimes you can only track progress before you see the final results. Remember to be clear about deadlines and constantly check for doubts or missing information.
Tip: Use Sheets or Excel to measure progress if you would like to save some of your budget. Apps like Quickbooks or Loomly are better for analyzing results but can be pricey, depending on your chosen plan.
Provide Feedback
Finally, you will need to provide feedback to your VA. This step doesn't necessarily have to be performed at the end of the virtual assistant service; you can do it in the first week you hire the service. Feedback allows a VA to adapt to the ever-changing structure of a business and can enable them to get better results while using modern admin methods.
Some agencies also provide a feedback survey after the first month you hired the service. In this survey, you will be asked all the relevant questions regarding your VA and can comment on their performance, skills, and knowledge. It is vital to mention that if you are unhappy with the work a VA is doing for your company, you do not need to worry. Virtual agencies have dozens of workers eager to work to make your company better. You need only speak with the agency.
Tip: Most likely, there were a lot of questions you asked during the initial consultation. Take those questions into account when providing feedback to your VA.
Get Virtual Assistant Service
Choosing a virtual assistant service can be a little complicated. You need to analyze your company from the inside to know what is best for it. There are also hundreds of VA options you can choose from and different types of virtual assistants that can help your business.
Here at New Age Cubicle, we offer flexible plans for any type of company that you can mix and match to get the exact virtual assistant service you want. Schedule a free consultation today and see for yourself how virtual assistants are the future of the workforce.