A virtual assistant is a professional who is responsible for providing assistance and support to both companies and self-employed workers. It is in charge of both administrative and technical services, depending on what the company or individual requires. Of course, it is virtual because it carries out its activities remotely.
What are the functions of a virtual assistant?
The functions of a virtual assistant are very varied and will depend on the company or individual that requires their services. However, the most common are the following:
- Attention and response to email.
- Attention and response to telephone lines.
- Technical support and help to clients.
- Attention and response to queries on social networks and chat.
- Control of agendas and appointment management.
- Event organization.
- Follow-up on sales prospects.
- Request for quotes and search for suppliers.
- Search for new clients and business opportunities.
- Email marketing.
- Billing and collections via telephone or internet.
- Administrative management.
- Creation and management of databases.
- Translation and transcription.
- Review and editing of texts.
- Executive assistance.
- Receptionist duties.
- Making multimedia presentations.
- Project management.
The most common tasks performed by virtual assistants are assistance and customer service. Both to resolve doubts related to the purchase of a product, with the purchase process, providing customer assistance and resolving doubts, and to provide post-sales support. It is very important to integrate the virtual assistant’s communication with that of the rest of the customer service agents, something that can be done through an omnichannel strategy.
Reasons to hire a virtual assistant
The sector of your company and the way of working will mean that the reasons may vary, however we leave you the most common reasons:
- Increased flexibility: Having a virtual assistant automatically provides you with more flexibility, you will be able to organize yourself much better since you will be more freed and have less workload, so you will be able to focus on other more important tasks. Some tasks that it can free you from are responding to emails or organizing your calendar or agenda, so that you can focus on more strategic meetings or tasks, or it will allow you to have more free time for you and your family.
- You don’t need an office: A virtual assistant works remotely, their work is remote so you do not need to find a space for them in your office. You can work from anywhere in the world, although it is important that you take into account the time zone of your company or your clients, since it must be available to them. Likewise, it will be important that you have a stable internet connection, which guarantees good communication with clients.
- Work by hours or by projects: You can manage this through tools like Trello or Jira, for example. As for salary, you will pay the agreed budget per hour or project, that depends on each company or individual.
- Set objectives: You can set a specific objective, for example improving customer service. That way you can focus on a completely different objective, being calm since you will not have to worry about the tasks related to the objective set for the virtual assistant.
- It helps you always stay connected: Having a person who is in charge of managing e-mails, communications, complaints or comments from clients and even employees is always a help, since it is work that you can save yourself and that also always requires a lot of work. time to do it, and above all to do it well.
Benefits of hiring a virtual assistant
The benefits derived from hiring a virtual assistant are numerous. Below we leave you the main ones:
- You don’t need to give him a physical space, since the assistant works remotely: As we have discussed in the reasons, this is also an important benefit.
- You save on equipment and supplies: Since the virtual assistant is not in the office, you will not have to provide them with work equipment or pay for supplies corresponding to it.
- You can hire it by hours, projects or periods, reducing fixed costs: As we also said in the reasons, you can manage it by hours or projects, and you do not have to keep it on a permanent staff, but you can hire its services in periods of peak work.
- You avoid Social Security expenses: By not having the employee registered as a normal worker, you save on social security and other related expenses.
- Improve customer service: You normally hire a virtual assistant to support customer service, so customer satisfaction will improve by having someone ready to resolve their doubts, problems and queries.
- Increase productivity: You will have fewer interruptions so your work will have higher quality, you will be able to focus on tasks that really matter and you will delegate those tasks that the virtual assistant can carry out efficiently.
- Your business will remain operational 24/7, if you wish: Even if you are not there, if your business is an e-commerce, for example, it can be operational all the hours you require thanks to the work of a virtual assistant.
- You can establish a global presence, if you wish: You can have a virtual office in any country, which favors customer assistance anywhere on the planet.
- It gives more professionalism: By having an assistant who serves your clients in a professional and efficient manner, you generate an image of greater professionalism and confidence.
What is a conversational virtual assistant or chatbot?
A conversational virtual assistant or chatbot is a system based on AI, specifically NLP, that facilitates interaction tasks with customers through text or voice. They are usually used as an intermediary between clients and company agents, and are integrated into websites and instant messaging platforms such as Whatsapp Business.