Virtual assistants (VAs) have long been working in the business industry. They are freelancers and independent workers who offer administrative assistance in managing various professional functions to support a company. They are also called online assistants who can handle a wide array of tasks like handling transactions and scheduling appointments, to name a few.
As a business owner, you may find that tasks to maintain your competitive edge in the industry may seem unending. To focus more on complex tasks, outsourcing can be a great decision to help unload your burden of handling low-value activities, and this is where financial assistants can boost your business’s productivity and efficiency.
Any business can benefit from hiring virtual assistants. Repetitive or tedious paperwork may seem low-yield in the financial industry, especially if you have other important tasks that require more of your energy.
If you want to know why hiring a VA is a good decision, here are some reasons you should get your own financial service virtual assistant.
Gives less stress while being a time and money saver
Working in the financial industry means being swamped in a mountain-load of paperwork. The amount of work may be your source of stress, especially if it impedes you from doing your core tasks.
A virtual assistant can save you from stressing over minuscule tasks and misdirecting your own time. Some administrative work that you can give VAs is taking care of clients’ inbound and outbound calls, handling customer support and transactions, responding to emails, taking down notes during meetings, and a whole lot more.
Aside from reducing stress, hiring a VA can also save you from spending money on hiring full-time employees as some VAs work on an as-needed basis. You can pay them per hour or for every task done.
Since they don’t work in your physical office, you don’t have to think of the overhead costs like their internet connection, tools and equipment, and the space they need to work.
Gives you personal assistance
Lower-value tasks may eat up your time. To assist you in managing your personal and professional time, virtual assistants can help coordinate your schedule and appointments so you won’t miss any important events.
VAs can remind you about important calls and meetings just so you won’t forget. If you find it hard to manage your time, your VA can also organize your meetings and other calendar activities to help you stay on track.
You can also request them to cancel or reschedule some of your scheduled calls and appointments. They can also offer to schedule calls and meetings for other team members.
VAs can even book your flights and arrange your hotel accommodations if you have important meetings outside your town. In the current setting, virtual assistants can also manage your Zoom meetings and handle online appointments and correspondences if you can’t spare your time for these kinds of tasks.
Offers professional support
VAs deal with non-core professional tasks. Although they are equally important as your core activities, some of the tasks don’t need much of your time and effort.
You may also consider hiring a VA if you don’t have enough workforce. Although technology has made life easier, especially in handling financial work, no computer program can manage all of the accounting effectively and efficiently on its own. Outsourcing can be a great option, giving you the workforce you need without any additional considerations.
Virtual assistants can handle accounting payables and receivables, business transactions, bookkeeping, and invoicing. Remember, as much as you offer financial services to your clients, managing your finances is also essential. Although these are considered non-core tasks, they require excellent data entry skills and good attention to detail to help you manage your books.
Outsourcing these kinds of tasks will allow you to invest more of your resources into other critical business processes.
Provides technical support
VAs can also handle technical and management tasks for your business. It is crucial to hire a team that can manage specialized tasks to get your business’ name on top of the chain. If you lack the workforce to handle this job, you can also get a VA to manage this for your team.
Technical support includes handling social media accounts, website maintenance, and coordinating with the I.T. staff should there be any operational issues. Outsourcing this kind of work to a VA will help your business maintain a strong online presence and enhance your brand image to attract more clients and expand your network. In this competitive industry, you have to stretch your capacity and exhaust all means to reach your target market.
You may also hire a VA to record your transactions with clients. They can file the necessary documents digitally and organize them accordingly. The workflow will get easier, which can help your business run more efficiently.
Tips on How to Choose the Right VA
With the current pandemic, freelancing and remote jobs have become in demand. Hiring virtual assistants may be easier in this setup; however, you must consider many factors when looking for the best VA for your company.
- Determine what you need
Before you start your search, you first have to determine what your company needs. You have to identify the reason why you need to hire a virtual assistant.
What are your strengths and weaknesses? What tasks make it difficult for your company to be efficient or productive? If your company has problems organizing digital files or simply scheduling client appointments and meetings, hiring a VA may enable you to fill in the gap.
After that, you have to determine what are the needed skills or assets for that specific task. This way, you can have a basis of what particular qualities you have to look for in a VA, so they can get the job done effectively.
- Look for the right skills
Every task warrants a different skill set. However, there are specific skills that every virtual assistant must possess. Regardless of their experience, you should look out for these qualities when qualifying the applicants.
The first is good communication skills. Having good English language skills is a must, as it is the primary language in writing reports and communicating with clients and other professionals.
However, this skill does not only mean being proficient in English. VAs must also have the ability to convey their thoughts and message. You also need to ensure that they are readily available through different means of communication.
Having effective communication skills also means being able to understand what the other party is conveying. This skill also entails a good understanding of simple instructions. It may seem so basic, but others tend to overlook these skills in the primary search.
You may start to filter the applicants before the official interview by including simple instructions in your ads to check whether or not they can follow them accurately.
As a VA, being able to handle various tasks is a must. You must look for an applicant who can work well under pressure and handle multitasking.
It doesn’t mean that a VA must be able to do tons of work per day without breaking a sweat. A virtual assistant must have good organization skills to handle multiple tasks efficiently. To do so, a VA must handle the stress well and keep up with the fast-paced environment of your company. Good time management skill is a must.
- Look for someone with experience in the industry
To boost your company’s productivity, you must hire a VA with relevant work experience. You can get referrals and testimonials from other professionals in the industry to assess if that person has the essential knowledge about the kind of work you do.
In Closing
Having a virtual assistant with the right skills and experience can contribute to your company’s success. Aside from saving you from stress, time, and other costs, VAs can offer various kinds of support to boost your company’s productivity and efficiency.
Remember that your company’s success depends on the people behind the work, so you must search for a VA with skills aligned to the type of work you do. Optimizing how you work as a company will provide a huge benefit to your company’s overall success, and one way to do that is to hire a virtual assistant.
