In every company, there are bound to be repetitive tasks that, although vital to the running of your business, are time-consuming. Here’s a list of things you can give to your virtual assistant to free up your time to spend on the tasks only you can do, or enjoy doing.
Customer Service & Liaising
So you’ve started your business and you’re getting emails from interested customers – great! But now you’ve got to juggle liaising with potential clients while chatting to or meeting with current clients and the next thing you know it’s 1 am and you’re still checking emails.
Your VA can help by monitoring your inbox, weeding out spam and sending pre-set replies to emails. These tasks can be handed over to your virtual assistant and mentioned in their scope or part of the virtual assistant job description.
Calendar Management by your Virtual Assistant
No one likes to have to cancel or (the worst!) miss an important meeting. Life happens, but a Virtual Assistant with access to your daily planner can help you avoid some of these situations by checking that you haven’t double-booked and that you have enough time to get from meeting A in Pretoria to meeting B in Johannesburg with time to spare.
Your Virtual Assistant can also make travel arrangements on your behalf which can save you the worry of making these travel arrangements and juggling your diary.
Meeting Bookings
You’ve got an opportunity to pitch your company to a big client. One problem – you’re in Pretoria, and their head office isn’t. Your VA can arrange travel, car hire and accommodation for you all to your specifications to ensure you get to your meeting refreshed to land that client.
Your Virtual Assistant can be in charge of scheduling meetings on your behalf so you have the time to make sure your time management skills are up to par.
Database Management
You are urgently trying to contact a client or supplier and then…”The number you have dialled does not exist.” Now what? Depending on your type of business, you most likely have client or supplier contact lists and those telephone numbers and email addresses are bound to change from time to time. Your Virtual Assistant can keep your databases up to date.
A few other tasks you can outsource
While not everyone might be comfortable having a VA take phone calls, it is definitely an option if you have right assistant. Scheduling meetings can also be an easy task to outsource, while many of our clients have VA’s post to job descriptions to job boards when they plan on hiring. Assistants with good instant messaging communication skills are invaluable and are often good candidates for social media management.
Other virtual assistant duties can include customer research (perhaps before a sales call), doing market research (before launching a new product or service), compiling customer spreadsheets, maintaining contact lists, data entry, regularly posting to your social media channels or email management.
To conclude
You could always hire a virtual assistant who can handle these tasks for you, or you could hire a virtual assistant who does have access to your social media accounts or email.
To fill your virtual assistant position with the right person, make sure you are clear on the assistant responsibilities.
A virtual assistant can work on all of these aspects of your business for you, which means you can focus on more important things. Using an executive assistant with a good internet connection will help you save money, as they are often more efficient than using your precious time for doing these tasks yourself.
