A virtual assistant, also known as a VA, is a person or a piece of artificial intelligence (AI) software that provides assistance to a person with without reporting to a physical location. Virtual assistants in the business world are hired to do tasks like data entry, schedule meetings, provide client support and work to make your life easier. Software virtual assistants are created to use search engines to find answers for your questions, play music, set reminders and perform other tasks that do not need human processing like turning off the lights or re-ordering household goods.
A virtual assistant is your right-hand in business. Their job is to know each of the ins-and-outs, but as the name states, they are virtual unlike a receptionist in your office. They will work from home or from a co-working space where they live. That does not mean you cannot visit them or bring them to visit you, but they are virtual and you should not expect your VA to report to your office like a regular assistant. But similar to a receptionist you may be able to forward your main office number to have them work as a backup when your regular receptionist is busy on occasion.
Human virtual assistants are able to be hired full time or part time and you can hire locally in your city or country, or outsource overseas. Your VA can be hired on as an employee, a contractor or you can use virtual assistant services like ours to match your needs with our candidate talent pool.
The benefit to using a virtual assistant management company is that you don’t have to pay overhead like employment taxes or have to train on software. Management companies have trained talent and can scale as many VAs as you need making your life easier and we handle benefits, firing and each of the HR tasks you will no longer need to worry about.
When considering what a virtual assistant is, it is also important to think about how to pay them. Many VAs will work hourly or on a flat rate if you do not want to hire a full time VA. If you go with a management company, you will be charged based on your needs and in some cases can scale upwards or downwards while receiving discounts as you hire more VAs to support your growing business.
Now that you know what a virtual assistant is, here are some of the tasks you can hire a virtual assistant to do, a list of questions to ask a virtual assistant during their interview, and feel free to contact us using the form on the top right of this page or email is at sales@safivirtual.com and let us know about your needs. We’ll be able to use our database of highly trained and readily available VAs to find a few options that can help you immediately.