9 Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant
“Have a virtual assistant.” Maybe you have heard the quote more than ever and you wonder what it is, or it sounds like science fiction.
And I am going to discuss with you 9 benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant.
However, having a virtual assistant is something that more and more entrepreneurs, independent professionals, or owners of SMEs choose because they offer benefits that you too can and should take advantage of.
First of all…
As you know, having your own office or being an independent professional implies knowing how to manage your time and resources efficiently.
But, above all, it requires the constant search for business opportunities, without neglecting the execution of your projects and the follow-up of the current clients with whom you work.
In a few words: Sell without ceasing to produce and produce without ceasing to sell.
Has it happened to you that you are in an important meeting and a client calls you and you cannot answer?
Or that you wanted to take a couple of vacation days out of the country and then you see that you have emails of 2 or 3 days without responding, messages on your social networks and many pending?
It is then that having help becomes essential and a virtual assistant will be very useful.
9 benefits of Hiring a virtual assistant?
Basically, he’s an office assistant or administrative assistant, but he gives you support remotely.
It can help you in areas of customer service, sales, etc.
How does it work?
Thanks to the use of technological tools, it is now possible to optimize work, performing various functions from anywhere.
And the only thing that is needed in most cases is a computer, internet and a phone number.
This makes it possible for you to delegate certain tasks to someone else so that they can follow up and solve them without you being present all the time.
Some of the functions of a virtual assistant are:
- Email attention
- Attention of telephone lines
- Technical support and customer support
- Management of your agenda and appointment management
- Follow-up to sales prospects
- Request for quotes and supplier search
- Search for new clients and business opportunities
- Email marketing
- Response to queries on social networks and chat
- Billing and collection by phone or online
To work with a virtual assistant, you can coordinate through the phone, email, and task management tools such as Asana or Trello, which allow you to assign tasks, monitor progress and organize everything pro projects if you need it.
Similarly, you can implement a CRM (customer relationship management ) or customer relationship management tool, such as Hubspot, Salesforce, Zoho, among others, to centralize the management of contacts, business opportunities, and sales closings.
Now, you’re probably wondering if having a plant assistant wouldn’t be the same.
That is: What is the advantage of having a virtual assistant over a regular office assistant?
9 Reasons to hire virtual Assistant:
1. You don’t need additional space
One of the advantages is that you do not have to make any physical changes within your business.
Nor will you need to move to a larger office or rent additional space.
The virtual assistant does the work from home or from his own office.
Therefore, all you have to do is hire him and assign him the duties he is going to perform.
2. Savings on equipment and office supplies
In addition to saving space, since the virtual assistant does the work from home, it also means that you can save on purchasing equipment.
This means that you will not need to invest in furniture, computers, air conditioners, etc.
It also means that you save on office supplies, uniforms, cafeteria, etc.
3. You contract for less money
One of the benefits of freelance hiring a virtual assistant is that you can only hire seasonally or hourly.
If, for example, you have time to be in your office every morning, you can find someone to assist you in the afternoon.
Another possibility is that you only hire in the periods in which you have to travel or at certain times or days when you cannot serve customers.
Therefore, by paying only part-time, you are saving money by paying a full-time fixed salary.
4. Savings in benefits
Part of the obligations of any employer, whatever the country, is the payment of social security benefits, vacations, Christmas bonuses, pensions, training, layoffs, compensation and others.
All this, of course, increases costs within the company.
And while the work the employee does is supposed to cover those costs, when you’re starting your business, you’ll need to save as much as possible.
In addition, you save the paperwork and paperwork involved in hiring a new employee.
Think:
Not in all seasons will you have the same amount of work or income. But the payroll payment remains fixed.
Therefore, hiring a virtual assistant freelance is much more practical and economical.
5. You respond faster to your customers
As a business owner, surely it has happened to you that you have been very busy and time goes by without being able to check your email.
Or suddenly you have many appointments to attend and you do not have time to check your social networks, update them, respond to comments, etc.
For this, a virtual assistant can support you by attending instantly to the queries that customers usually make, answering the phone when you are busy and that you do not miss the call, answering emails more efficiently, etc.
It can even respond to chat on your website or inboxes and private messages from your social networks.
That way, your customers get immediate attention .
Remember:
Response time is key to closing a sale.
If a customer calls and they do not answer, or write and take too long to receive a response to their query, your competition may answer first or in the end decide not to make the purchase.
This is something you should not allow and you can easily solve it with the help of a virtual assistant.
6. You work with fewer interruptions
One of the most important points of your work is quality and giving your client a satisfactory experience. The objective is that they want to return to work with you or acquire the service you offer.
This means not only good execution, but excellent customer service as well.
You cannot neglect either aspect.
However, attending social networks, customer inquiries, provider calls and others, can be a distracting factor in what you are doing.
This is why thousands of highly-focused career professionals, such as programming, writing, architecture, law, accounting, and more, decide to hire a virtual assistant.
In this way, they can dedicate themselves to doing quality work, without losing concentration and inspiration.
7. Your business remains open even if you are not
It may have happened to you on more than one occasion that you are not available in your office for a few days due to force majeure … A family grief, a week of illness training, a trip outside the country, etc.
It is also likely that on some occasion you decided to take a vacation with your family (which we all deserve).
In that case, it will be a relief to have someone who can take care of the customers while you’re gone.
The virtual assistant can take calls, resolve everyday issues, schedule appointments for when you return, etc.
And if a very urgent matter arises, he or she will be able to contact you to consult you.
Thus, your business does not stop and at the same time you can have time for yourself .
8. You can have a virtual office in any country
As you are reading it …
If the service you provide is through the network, you can serve customers from all over the world, even during times when you would normally be asleep, on rest days, etc.
You do not necessarily have to have only one since by working flexibly, you can hire partial depending on the place.
In addition, with a virtual assistant, you can provide customer service even in a language other than Spanish. All you have to do is hire a person from the country you want to serve.
Then provide you with the tools you need: an email address and a phone number.
A good option for this is to acquire a Skype number or implement tools such as Phone Systems, Tool Free Forwarding, etc.
That way, you can have a local number to receive calls and your assistant will be able to contact you when you need it.
9. Gives you a more professional image
Having an assistant to help you with customer service will make you look more professional and give you a certain “status” of importance.
The virtual assistant will answer the phone with the name of your business or office and will be at the customer’s request.
Also, if you are not available, they can offer help to the client or take note. The client will thus know that he will be contacted as soon as possible.
This generates an immediate feeling of being attended by true professionals. This, in turn, makes the client feel more confident in the company to which he is communicating.
Conclusion:
As you can see, with a virtual assistant, your business looks and becomes more professional without the need to physically expand the facilities, or to invest in more personnel or to incur large expenses.
All you need is to hire an online virtual assistant .
Best of all, you can take a test for a month or two. For this, you agree on a price for the services you will perform. Then, if you want, you can rehire.
So these were all 9 Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant for your business.