Are you feeling overwhelmed because of all the tasks you need to get done in a day? Perhaps it’s time to get yourself a virtual office assistant to help you keep things running as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
Basically, a virtual office assistant’s role is to support you and your staff by taking care of the monotonous tasks that take up so much of your time each day.
Did you know that the average American worker spends about 5 hours a day checking on emails? That’s according to a survey conducted by Adobe for their annual email usage study. Now, that’s for the average person. But what if you have thousands of unread emails in your inbox? It’s going to take hours to sort through all that and put it all in a designated place.
Fortunately, you don’t have to do that yourself since this is a task you can easily pass off to your assistant. Let your virtual office assistant clean up your inbox and manage your email for you so you can free up more time for the tasks that matter. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your login details, you can use LastPass.
Your virtual office assistant can act as the first point of contact for your business. He can answer incoming calls, provide general information, and redirect calls to you or other members of your staff. All you have to do is divert your calls to your assistant’s number and train him to respond to general inquiries.
This is another time-consuming task you can delegate to a virtual office assistant. Let your assistant keep your calendar organized, so you don’t have to spend hours scheduling appointments, coordinating meetings, and making travel arrangements each week. Now you can stay productive without worrying about your schedule.
Okay, this is probably one of the most tiresome but necessary activities you have to do to keep your business running smoothly. Yes, this is an easy task, and you can do this on your own. However, it’s going to take so much of your time to get everything in order. That time is better spent elsewhere. So just let your virtual office assistant handle this.
You don’t have to be the most organized person in the world if you have someone who can organize all your documents for you on your preferred cloud storage solution.
Transcribing audio to text is relatively easy, especially if you’re using a transcription software like Sonix. Still, you need to understand that no software can transcribe audio to text with 100% accuracy. Not even Sonix. These apps can save you so much time, but you still need someone to edit and proofread the transcription generated by the software, and this is still time-consuming. That’s where your office assistant comes in. A virtual assistant can come in and go through the text for you and correct any errors.
Success starts with research. This is how you understand your clients’ needs or prospective customers, and how you get one up on the competition. Market research is very important for startups because you need to be well-informed, so you can make sound decisions and develop your strategies. So get your office assistant to gather data for your spreadsheets, and train him to use a survey tool like Google Forms or Typeform.
Your office assistant can help you prepare PowerPoint presentations. Just tell him what to research, and he can handle the rest. Let him create the outline and prepare the slides. Once he’s done, you can add the personal touches, and it’s good to go. You can save yourself a lot of time by handing that to somebody else.
Having a social media presence is essential these days if you’re running a business. It helps you connect with your customer base, it has proven to be a key factor in creating brand awareness, and it can generate leads and sales.
Social media will impact the overall growth of your business. However, managing your accounts can take so much of your time, especially if you are active on multiple social media platforms. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, your office assistant can help.
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So these are the skills that a great office assistant should have. Take a look at the list before you hire one.
As you may have noticed, an office assistant has a wide range of responsibilities. That means he has to learn how to multitask. Just to clear, multitasking doesn’t mean doing everything at the same time. What we’re talking about here is the ability to juggle a variety of tasks each day. Your assistant needs to know how to switch from one task to another without a dip in productivity.
The ability to adapt to any situation at the drop of a dime is critical for an office assistant. He should be able to look for ways to solve problems at short notice and improvise when things don’t go according to plan. In addition to that, he should show a willingness to learn new skills because you’re going to be handling off a lot of stuff to your assistant.
If your office assistant is acting as the first point of contact for your business, he needs to have excellent oral and written communication skills. If this isn’t his strong suit, you probably shouldn’t let him handle calls from customers. Being a good communicator means being a good listener as well. Remember that.
If your virtual office assistant is going to do a variety of tasks for you, he needs to be tech-savvy. Can you imagine hiring someone who doesn’t know how to use a social media scheduler like Buffer or Hootsuite?
Your office assistant will likely help you troubleshoot a lot of issues, and he will encounter unexpected obstacles along the way. Having the ability to think quickly and creatively is very important if he is to overcome these challenges.
Where can you find a great virtual office assistant? I would recommend OnlineJobs.ph because I’ve been using it for close to 10 years now. Filipinos are just excellent workers, and they have affordable rates.
The first thing you should do when you visit the site is to create your account. Signing up is free. However, you have to upgrade to a paid plan if you want to communicate with the candidates you find.
There are two pricing plans available on the website: the Pro plan for $69 per month and the Premium plan for $99 per month. The Premium plan has some nice features, but you can just pick the Pro plan since you’re only going to be hiring one person. So go ahead and create your job posting and wait for the resumes to roll in. Once you’ve found the perfect office assistant, just cancel your subscription so you no longer have to pay the monthly fee.
As you can see, an office assistant can take a huge amount of pressure off your shoulder. So have I convinced you to get one?
* Disclosure: The link above is an affiliate link, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. To find out more about our view on affiliate products, please see this page.
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