The benefits of VA teams

Most people looking to outsource their admin to a Virtual Assistant will cite improving quality and reducing costs as the main objectives. This is perfectly reasonable and, if done properly, then you can expect both. Professional administrators who specialise in this type of work will undoubtedly do a better job and simply paying only for their productive time, without the usual employment costs, will surely outweigh the higher hourly rate.

However, there are other benefits that should be considered in any evaluation of proposals from Virtual Assistants or Admin Outsourcing firms. These include other softer benefits and value-added activities, services and support that only a team can offer. Here are some common examples to look out for:

• Breadth of skills and experience that might be useful further down the line
• Operating in pairs, or built-in team cover when busy, on holiday or absent
• Technical support to help train VAs on your systems and deal with questions
• IT expertise to help you get setup and solve any niggly IT issues that occur
• Full time recording so you can see the work and monitor value for money
• Understanding of your industry, offering the potential to learn from others
• Language capabilities .... the list goes on.

When you start your search for an outsourcing partner, start by thinking about what you need and how you will decide what "good" looks like. Establish some formal evaluation criteria and perhaps a simple scoring system that allows you to make a fair comparison should help.

Ultimately, you have to determine if a VA - and the same applies to a company or VA team - can do what she claims, is as good as she says and will be right for you? All are difficult questions to answer, but you may not even get the chance to meet face-to-face, making it all the more difficult to get underneath the sales facade. Hence, the need for a considered, professional approach to evaluation and decision-making.

Check out our previous blog posts about Hiring a VA... Doing it right and The business case for hiring a VA for more information and advice about selecting the right Virtual Assistant or outsourcing partner for your company.

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