Virtual Assistant - A Boon for Online Business

"You can't do today's job with yesterday's methods and be in business tomorrow". This popular saying fits perfectly in today's scenario of tough competitions. Today's business demands quality with perfection and innovation.

Big entrepreneurs and officials in large business organizations are looking for innovative and supportive solutions for generating more and more profits in their business. With their common concern, a term virtual assistant services is said to be quite beneficial for the businesses. Though a new concept but more and more people be it a small business entrepreneur or an individual businessman, are accepting it.
A lot of discussion has been made on this term but still people are confused with its real meaning. When a business organization outsource its various administrative services to a person sitting miles away from him without actually meeting him physically then that person is said to be working virtually for the organization. This is the meaning of virtual assistant services.
Availing the services of a virtual assistant never cause any added cost to your business. This is because you neither put any infrastructure or resources nor there is any need for insurance and health benefits. In fact, you can hire a virtual employee as per your project's requirement. Quality from a virtual assistant is assured because the success of your company will give him/her better rewards thus adding positive aspects of his/her career. Additionally, as the person can be hired from the global market, you have an amazing choice of skilled and expert personnel in the required field.
For contacting a virtual employee, you can use communication sources like email, telephone, facsimile, courier and other postal services. There is no need to have any physical meeting with the person.
What activities can a virtual professional handle?
You name it and they have it, yes!! A virtual employee can efficiently handle transcription services, designing and maintenance of websites, setting appointments, desktop support training, answering your calls, travel and transport arrangement and a lot more. Even all types of secretarial and personal assistant jobs are handled perfectly by this virtual service provider.
Owing to the growing popularity of these services, there are several organizations who have started virtual services for their offshore clients. These organizations have a team of experienced and skilled professionals who carry expertise in different arenas and thus deliver their services to the remote clients.
If you also want your business to take a leap towards success in available resources then virtual assistant services are fruitful option. When such person would handle your daily tasks, you can channelize your energy in some productive ideas and innovative tasks. Go ahead and search for reliable services on the internet and see the change after outsourcing business to virtual professionals.

Virtual Office Help Means More Green For Your Wallet and the Environment

With gas and food prices rising along with the expectation to go green, virtual office assistance has now found it's place in the competitive world of administration. Currently most companies, when in need of office help, have to pay for wants ads or staffing agency fees, spend hours going through resumes and interviews and then spend additional money for federal taxes, benefits and overhead costs. Now there are a growing number of administrative assistants who provide all of their services virtually (hence the name) via phone, fax and internet based technology. Most daily office tasks such as faxing, copying, returning emails, data entry, mass mailings, travel itineraries, internet research, word processing and bookkeeping can all be done from a home office with the right equipment and training.
If a company has a database that is internal, then the company can use an online tool such as http://www.gotomypc.com which allows them to set up a log in to the company database from a home computer. This allows greater freedom and financial control and also allows businesses to only pay for the time they need an assistant. For example the cost to hire a new individual can be up 100% of their salary. This can impact the bottom line of a small business tremendously especially if the individual may not be needed 20-40 hours per week permanently. Hiring a virtual assistant requires a phone call, email or fax entailing the job needed to be done and an estimate to approve for the job task entailed. Once the estimate is approved, the job is completed and the payment is made. The taxes, overhead costs and other usual full time employee expenses do not apply since you are hiring out an independent service provider.
An added benefit of using a virtual assistant is the impact you are making on the environment. Since these individuals provide their services virtually, the daily commute to and from an office location is eliminated thereby saving hundreds of gallons of gas and vehicle emissions that pollute the air. Most practices also use recycled office paper, ink cartridges and eco-friendly office supplies.
Hiring an intelligent, trustworthy and trained individual who can provide convenience and long term financial savings while helping to protect our precious environment is a benefit to any company.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1230861







Hiring virtual office services: Call center services


Author: WebNetLet
Hiring virtual office services can be as complicated or as straight forward as you like. Multinational virtual office providers have delivered exponential growth during the recent recession as companies seek to downsize their operations in remote locations while at the same time, correctly, not wishing to show signs of retraction from their desirable markets.

In these times of 24/7 constant online communications, customers and suppliers alike expect and demand to be able to talk to their contacts at a time that they wish and it is interesting that the larger companies who embrace unified communications are the slowest to adopt all that this technology offers. Perhaps their view is we’re big, you’re small, or at least not as big as us, so “speak to the hand” or the usual “leave a voice mail after the tone” and maybe they will get back to you eventually – this is a huge mistake.

Users and customers are not lacking in the intelligence department, they want to speak to a human being. In a recent survey, most callers valued the option to speak to an operator or call agent as worth 90% more than most of all the other options presented on an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. Essentially, they just want to talk to somebody and often wanting to be able to clarify doubts easily.

Virtual office services therefore divide themselves into two categories and therefore, 2 price ranges. If for example, you are a US company with the need to service your clients in Portugal and you are considering virtual office services but only comfortable negotiating for these services in English, you will have to pay a certain premium. If however you have someone on the ground who has a mother tongue in Portuguese, this is another matter; a locally brokered deal will work better for you every time. The basic maxim is “the further away you are, the more you will pay”.

Before buying or contracting a service, ask for user references from companies similar to yours, the most important thing is that the call agents should be professional and look after the caller, even if they know that the party sought by the caller is on a sales trip to Timbuktu and cannot be reached for 2 weeks, they should be seen to try to transfer the call. If all fail, note the caller’s correct name and contact details and promise to get the called party to get back as soon as possible to the caller.

The call agent from a virtual office service center should also take note of the callers who have called in, even if the agent who took the call is not working on the shift, they should pass the details on to their colleague with key details. Assuming the caller has something urgent to discuss, the real value of the virtual office services come into play here. If the operator is able to say with true conviction that they have talked with the called party and he or she understands the matter is urgent and will get back to the caller as soon as possible with the caller being satisfied, the mission will be accomplished and the reason for using a virtual office service will have been justified.

Posted in Articles | Tags: call center services