Virtual Assistants Could Fill a Gap in Your OBC

The OBC industry is known for running with a lean staff. We complain that service revenue is off; but, could it be that you are not offering the right team with the right skill sets?  Could it be that your clients are already outsourcing to virtual assistants?  Partnering with local virtual assistants can help you offer specialized services not currently offered by your team.

Internet technologies have really made it easier for people to become virtual assistants.  Many of the virtual assistants do a good job at advancing the interest of the business but of course you can’t expect all of them to deliver the same kind of service. Make sure that when you hire a virtual assistant that you hire a worker with the following traits.

• Someone who works as a virtual assistant full-time: there are people who can only do tasks for you during their off-hours or off days.  It is more desirable if you hire a virtual assistant who works at home full time.  Initially, you may only need the VA to work a few hours each day but you want a virtual assistant who can extend their services to longer hours of you need them to do more tasks.  You don’t know if in the future you will need the virtual assistant to work for you full-time.  You want to be able to develop a good relationship with a virtual assistant who can extend his or her hours for you.  This way you know that when the work demands it, the VA can do more work for you.
• Hire someone who is reliable- the last thing you want is a flaky virtual assistant who is inconsistent about the kind of output he or she delivers for your business. You want reliability and consistency because the VA will be working at his or her own home office. You want them to be able to deliver results as promised.
• Hire a virtual assistant with good communication skills- the virtual assistant needs to be able to communicate effectively with you.  If you can, interview the virtual assistant through a voice call so that you know if it’s easy to talk to the VA. 
• Hire a virtual assistant who is inquisitive- you want a virtual assistant who understands your goal and who clarifies tasks before proceeding.  You want the VA to work hard but you also want them to contribute to the project. They may have ideas to make projects better so you would want a virtual assistant who is inquisitive and who wants to understand the task at hand.

Get a virtual assistant who is detail-oriented- there will be tasks wherein small details can be very important. Make sure that you hire a virtual assistant who can pay good attention to little details that matter in big projects.