Virtual assistants for entrepreneurs: 6 tasks they can do you to save you time

Undoubtedly, the most precious resource for an entrepreneur is time. What can help you save time is automation through virtual assistants, an enhanced telephone answering service for small businesses. Employing one could be one of the smartest decisions you can make as an entrepreneur.

What is a virtual assistant?

Even before remote work became more normalised, remote assistance for busy entrepreneurs had become popular. A virtual assistant is an assistant who works for you remotely. They work with external agencies or as independent contractors.

With a virtual assistant, you don’t have to hire an employee in your office. Along with the savings in salaries and benefits, you also save on office space. Along with administrative tasks, there are several other jobs that a virtual assistant can handle.

Top 6 tasks a virtual assistant can do to save entrepreneurs time

Act as a receptionist

With a virtual assistant, you’ll be outsourcing your telephone answering service. They will take all your calls and forward any messages to you. The caller won’t know that they have called an external service.

Now you won’t be interrupted by routine calls from customers or clients seeking general information about your products or services.

Schedule appointments

When you get a virtual assistant through a telephone answering service, it becomes easier for both you and your customers to schedule appointments. You won’t have to stop what you’re doing, take the call, get your calendar and make the appointment.

Your customers also won’t have to wait for you to have some free time. By outsourcing it to a virtual assistant, you’re ensuring that scheduling happens without any delays.

Respond to emails

According to a study, each interruption to work costs aroffund 20 minutes, including the time spent managing it. In the modern age, the chief culprit behind those interruptions is emails.

A virtual assistant can handle all your work-related emails. They can provide answers to frequently asked questions and compile important emails and forward them to you.

Bookkeeping

Whether you’re a one-person operation or a small business, you would need to professionally manage your accounts. While there are several apps that can automate bookkeeping, you can also get a virtual assistant to do that.

They will document all your expenses and income as they occur, making it easy to prepare your financial reports and file your taxes.

Follow-up with clients

There are several crucial tasks that you would need to manage with your clients. These could be about the projects, their scope or any iterations. But there are administrative chores that don’t usually require your involvement.

A virtual assistant can follow up with your clients and vendors about invoices, payments, deliveries and other routine queries.

Social media management

You know what your social media posts should be about and their tone and manner. You can outsource the rest to a virtual assistant and save crucial time.

They can create simple content, schedule posts and engage with users. Now your business can grow its social media presence without you even having to get involved.

Second-line apps: Assistance beyond office hours

Beyond virtual assistants, there are other ways to handle the phone answering services of your small business. Since they can’t be on-call 24/7, you should avail the services of a second-line app. You can set up auto-replies to missed calls and get a second number dedicated to work without having to buy a new phone.

In short

Telephone answering services for small businesses have evolved to provide cost-effective and value-added benefits. A virtual assistant is one such solution that could immensely benefit entrepreneurs.