Virtual Assistant Outsourcing: Everything You Need to Know

Virtual assistant outsourcing, or delegating certain tasks or functions to professionals outside your company, is a business model similar to regular outsourcing. The only difference is that the service provider will complete the work from a different location, hence ‘virtual’.

There are many reasons behind outsourcing tasks or functions, however, outsourcing them to virtual assistants (VAs) has one specific reason behind it: maximizing cost saving. For example, in operation costs you can expect to save as much as 78%.

If you are someone who wants to start virtual assistant outsourcing and join the majority (66%) of the U.S. companies who already benefit from outsourcing, you should know everything of importance about it.

From how it works, to its benefits and how to start outsourcing to VAs, and more, this blog will make you ready for the new beginning.

Virtual assistant outsourcing is a business model where a business hires an external service provider to perform operations, tasks, and offer services that their employees should have offered under ideal conditions.

Virtual assistants, on the other hand, are skilled professionals offering a range of skills to suit their client’s tasks and its unique requirements. They are currently one of the best ways to manage workload, boost productivity, uplift your employee morale, and above all save time and money.

There are three types of outsourcing: onshore, nearshore, and offshore. Except onshore outsourcing the other two are strictly remote because nearshoring involves a provider from a nearby country (usually within the same continent) and offshoring means working with a provider from another continent.

The rule of thumb is: The further you outsource the more you save.

Especially with the U.S. minimum wage law it has become essential for many businesses to find effective offshore outsourcing solutions to generate any meaningful profit. But that is one of many benefits of outsourcing your tasks to VAs … we digress.

Let’s clarify the main types of virtual assistants you can delegate your tasks to before we go into the benefits.

General VAs are professionals with multiple skill sets aimed at tackling multiple tasks and take various responsibilities at once. For example, a VA for general purpose can schedule appointments, manage inbox, conduct research and also provide basic support in bookkeeping, graphic design, etc.

These VAs offer expert support in a single area. For example UI / UX design virtual assistants, CRM management virtual assistants, or claim processing virtual assistants are specialists in their domain. These VAs are generally selected keeping their previous experiences in mind and may also receive job specific training for best results.

Hiring virtual assistants is one of the best ways to maximize outsourcing benefits. Here’s how:

As a business owner, you should focus much of your time and effort working on the business rather than what happens now: you work in the business like the rest. To start doing what is needed, many business owners outsource various tasks to VAs and free up necessary time and money to invest on the business and their personal lives.

If you are a business owner you can have a clear estimate right now how much you can save if you can avoid hiring in-house employees for a function or task. For 70% of the businesses that outsource, they do it for the significant cost-saving it does for them. This will allow you to invest in more meaningful advancement for your business.

If all your tasks are handled by in-house employees, changes in workload or business scope will most likely cause serious issues and stress. Outsourcing your tasks to virtual assistants you can skip scalability issues altogether. Remote teams can adjust to changing workloads (scale up or down) at a moment’s notice without costing you a dime.

Getting access to local talent is becoming so hard that recruiting and retaining skilled employees have become an art form. According to a survey, 83% of small businesses will continue to outsource their tasks and functions to fill crucial skill gaps and tackle uncertainty during economic turbulence.

One of the main benefits of outsourcing services to VAs is that they can take your efficiency through the roof and along with it your productivity. When you have an extra set of hands solving your annoying problems you think and work better. It also relieves some pressure off of your employees, making them more productive too.

If you can partner with a virtual assistant service provider who values long-term business partnerships over one-offs you can expect high-quality service with a low margin for error. You should take initiatives to find out whether your outsourcing partner is a rogue or a dependable and trustworthy one before you delegate your tasks to them.

You are reading this blog because you don’t like how your to-do list looks right now. At least that is one of the reasons. Relying on a competent virtual assistant can help you tackle the never-ending list of time consuming jobs and keep your business organized.

Knowing how to outsource the right way is the most crucial element in the virtual assistant outsourcing journey. If you manage to choose the right vendor you can relax a bit, because half of the hard staff is taken care of.

Here’s what to do:

To select legit and competent service providers you should look for how many years in business they have been (the more the better), their expertise (domains covered, staff strength etc.), talk to their clients to know what they think about the vendor, their response time and how eager they are to ‘convert’ you (too much of this is a red flag).

A company that is dedicated to providing top-notch services would not try to convert you anyhow. They will assess your requirements and if they think that you can benefit from them, they will propose their solutions.

We assume that you have clear goals before you decide to work with a VA outsourcing partner, like reduce workload and stress, free up more time, save money on overhead expenses, or hire specific talent that is scarce in your region.

Whatever your objective is, you should be clear and realistic in your expectations and relay the information in as lucid language as possible to your vendor.

Be ready to be proactive and offer constructive feedback on a regular basis in the initial days. Expect to invest some time until both of you get comfortable with how things work.

What a virtual assistant can do is apparently limitless (imagine all tasks possible minus the physical ones). However, the extent to their services or ‘coverage’ depends on the vendor or service-provider.

Here’s a list of tasks you can expect a comprehensive coverage provider would offer:

• Email management
• Research and reports
• Meetings and minutes
• Manage events
• Recruitment
• HR management
• Project management
• Travel coordination
• Scheduling and calendar management
• Facilities management
• Materials coordinator
• CRM management
• Community management
• Supply chain management
• Document management
• Negotiation administration
• Workflow management
• Vendor management
• Team coordination
• Customer service oversight

• Cash flow management
• Technological integration
• Capital allocation
• Evaluation of assets
• Risk management
• Regulatory compliance
• Bookkeeping
• Audit reporting
• Financial reporting
• Planning and budgeting
• Forecasting and modeling
• Employee and vendor communication
• Transactional processing oversight
• Payroll processing
• Accounts payable
• Accounts receivable
• Accounting management
• External audit support
• Integrated financial planning
• Tax preparation and compliance

• System troubleshooting
• Monitoring
• Data backup and recovery
• Configuration management
• Disaster recovery
• Remote PC repair
• Hardware support
• Software support
• Network security

• Inventory management
• Customer service and support
• Order processing and fulfilment
• Product Listing Optimization (PLO)
• E-commerce analytics and reporting
• Return and complaint handling
• Website maintenance
• E-commerce transaction management
• Competitor and product research
• Product description writing
• Product classification
• Product image enhancement
• Product category management

• General data entry
• Data analytics
• Data cleansing
• Data conversion
• Data mining
• Data processing
• CRM data management
• Financial data management
• Database management

• Image annotation
• Video annotation
• Text annotation
• Audio processing
• Semantic segmentation
• Instance segmentation
• Sentiment analysis
• Polygon annotation
• Bounding box annotation
• Keypoint annotation
• Lidar and geospatial annotation
• Entity classification
• NLP data labelling
• Intent analysis
• Named-entity Recognition (NER)

• Content writing
• Content marketing
• Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Inbound marketing
• Brand marketing
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Website design and development
• Influencer outreach
• Affiliate marketing
• Social media marketing

Depending on the company you choose for virtual assistant outsourcing, it can be one of the best business decisions you have ever taken. By delegating repetitive or complex tasks you can save time and money while providing the necessary relief to your in-house employees. It can result in a productive yet stress-free work environment.