Virtual Assistant Agency can help American businesses in COVID Crisis

Many small and medium-sized businesses and also the high and mighty are thinking of hiring a virtual assistant agency to see them through the stagnation and degradation in their business. Whenever we open the morning newspaper or listen to the radio or watch the television, we feel as if World War 3 is staring at our faces. Every day the death toll is breaking all its previous records. The graph on the number affected is shooting up constantly with no signs of any downward move. On top of that, due to the worldwide lockdown at different stages, economic growth has come to a screeching halt. 

Most of the countries worldwide including India, and the United States have seen lockdown that were enforced to stay indoors for personal safety reasons and to keep up with social distancing. Many nations across the world imposed these kinds of restrictions to all its citizens. Travel to and from the country has been stopped completely so that the social distancing norms could be maintained to the tee. 

Now the big question is that how can the big, medium and small sized businesses in countries like America thrive and continue under this pandemic situation. Today, it has become quite clear that we will have to change our mindset from the traditional to the modern. Are you at your wits end while reading this much? Don’t be because you must have heard the old saying that every cloud has a silver lining. A virtual assistant agency is that silver lining who can save your business during this pandemic situation. Let’s see how.

Here are some of the ways by which you can adapt to this new change if you really are thinking of protecting your business during this lock down period:

1. You can indeed leverage a virtual assistant agency for your company or arrange for a freelancer who is offering these services. An assistant or a team providing the same services can process and carry out the majority of the tasks of your business remotely. They will give an impression of a virtual employee sans the physical presence but they will enhance your business productivity manifold even during this hour of deep crisis.

2.  The virtual assistant agency can save your business in every way by working dedicatedly from a remote location. They will process your administrative tasks, carry out marketing in the social media, maintain your books, and schedule your appointments, etc. The people from varied professions like the realtors, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, etc from all around the world have already started taking their help in carrying out different tasks. As the full strength of the regular in-house employees cannot be utilized due to this extreme situation, the virtual helpers will be in great demand in their place. They are always ready to serve you and help you in saving your business and to keep it afloat.

3. The most advantageous aspect of employing a virtual assistant agency is that they will never come in physical contact with you and will process all the tasks delegated to them, remotely. You can hire them for a fixed number of hours. Their payment mode is also very flexible. They are paid on hourly basis or on the basis of the projects they do. Thus, the business can see a lot of savings in terms of expenditure. This is great news in today’s bleak economic situation. 

4. Moreover, there is a huge necessity of arranging for any infrastructure or bring in new technology for your employees to work from a home setup. The virtual assistant agency has all the required infrastructure and modern gadgets to carry out the business projects entitled to them. This will save all the extra expenses, as mentioned above, while minimizing the threat that has come to your business due to the pandemic.

5. In this pandemic situation, every business, big and small, is limiting their workforce. As all the employees do not have the right infrastructure, technology or the training to work from a home setup, the virtual assistant agency can fill up that empty space at no extra cost. The businesses can carry on with the disinfecting the office premises periodically without hampering the daily productivity. 

6. As we are going through a big crisis and a situation where the world economy is facing a huge risk, businesses like e-commerce can see a complete breakdown. These businesses need constant up-gradation of their websites so that they can stay in the business. For this huge manpower is needed to project the products, process the orders, etc. In this situation, the virtual assistant agency can indeed save the face of your business by carrying out all the necessary product updates and write the appropriate contents and display them online so that the whole business process run smoothly as before.

7. As the virtual assistant agency does not require the extra space to carry out their operations, the question of opening the offices does not arise. As we are still going through a lot of lockdowns, the risk of exposure to corona becomes almost nil. Everything, starting from the inventory to the product listing to running of the overall operations is carried out smoothly from a virtual space.

8. In this period of turmoil and crisis, almost no new recruitment is being done by the organizations. And the existing employees are losing their jobs every day. But the business tasks related to new product launch or launch of new service has to be carried out periodically. For this, short trainings have to be provided to the new recruits. This extra cost and the problem of training a new person can be totally averted if you appoint a virtual assistant agency. This will save your business from all the unnecessary overhead costs while your business progresses smoothly.

9. They are equipped with lots of diverse skills required to cater to clients of different business types. Some of these assistants are well versed with all the expertise of a graphic designer and are capable of generating some fabulous designs, and illustrations. An experienced virtual assistant agency have the knowledge of operating the softwares like Canva. If you hire one of these expert assistant with such amazing capabilities, he or she can prove to be a one-man army for your business in this pandemic situation. 

10. You will no longer be required to hire a team of graphic designers who will charge you a hefty sum even during this crisis period for their designs and illustrations. The virtual help can do this for you at a much lesser cost. They are so versatile and superbly skilled that they can produce the best in terms of quality when compared to the in-house illustrators.

11. The virtual assistant agency offers you the option of working according to your needs from anywhere in the world and at any point of time. You are absolutely free to choose the hours, the plans and price according to your needs. So these assistants can be leveraged according to your own terms during this crisis period as well.

12. All the businesses are making extraordinary changes in their day to day operations to tide over this pandemic situation so that they can last till the end. That is also one of the reasons why most of them are hiring the virtual assistant agency to get the best services at the smallest possible time and cost. In this unpredictable period, these are the people who will bring in the best possible help to your business and stop it from shrinking.

13. Are you worried about how to market your business? The virtual assistant agency has the answer to all your queries. They can carry out online marketing for you, approach your targeted audiences globally, handle the social media with regular posts, and do online advertising to lure the new clients. This way your business will see a major upgradation online and get the potential clients making your business run smoothly. The Internet has the right potential to bring in great changes in the way you reach out and engage with your clients.

14. The most powerful internet marketing technique that is in offer today is through SEO. If used judiciously, your business will always have an outstanding edge over other contemporary businesses. For you can definitely take the help of a virtual assistant agency to help you scale up your business through leaps and bounds. In this pandemic situation, outdoor marketing has become a strict no-no. As marketing is an integral part of any business, it can be carried out through these assistants effectively online.

15. In the present scenario, you should plan on your finances very well as every business is seeing a cash crunch due to a steep fall in all kinds of sell. This planning should be done depending on where you want to see your business in the years to come. The virtual assistant agency can play a big part in the planning and can make it so sound that no pandemic or lock down can stop you to reach that target in the coming future. They will guide you as to how your business can tide over the economic recession and be a winner in the end. 

16. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that the coronavirus is here to stay and may comeback with a greater force in the near future. For this reason, companies worldwide are asking their employees to work from home or else see a complete shutdown. Working from home can be troublesome for many in-house employees for various reasons and can hinder the day to day operations immensely. Taking into account the loss involved in the process, you can perfectly tune your business operations by appointing a virtual assistant agency. 

Is a virtual assistant agency fit for your business?

Here are some more reasons as to why their service can become indispensable for your business:

1. The pandemic has brought in a lot of stress and uncertainty in our daily lives. This is truer in case of the budding new entrepreneurs who are seeing a lot of slowing down and hindrances in their business. This can be extremely frustrating for them at times and they need some time for them to come out from this gloom. To make the possible, the virtual assistant agency can prove to be a messiah. They will let you to do what you love the most.

2. When our plate overflows, managing an in-house team becomes unthinkable. These assistants provide a perfect solution to many of the daily business tasks that requires a part-time or full-time employee. These can leave you drained as you are handling this all on your own in this situation due to manpower shortage. The virtual assistant agency can handle all this important stuff and free you up so that you can relax a bit. Running, thinking, planning, failing and again replanning a business can seem to be too tiring at times. This will help you to concentrate more in a free mind. You are required to handle numerous pesky emails, calls, virtual meetings even during this pandemic.

3. By appointing a virtual assistant agency, you can rely on an expert. As the industry of this kind of assistance grows, so does the quality of skills that are made available. They have many years of experience under their belts in areas such as marketing, copy writing, social media, and many more. For small time business enterprises, taking care of your business all by yourself can result in making many mistakes. This is simply due to the reason that you may not have the required expertise to handle all the tasks. These mistakes can have a catastrophic effect on your business. So hiring a trained help virtually during this pandemic situation is a very wise investment.

4. Hassle free help of a virtual assistant agency becomes very essential when your business grows. But, in this Covid situation, you not even think of appointing a full-time employee to look after the office administration. First you will have to assess as to how much you can afford to get the important administrative tasks done. In this trying time, you don’t have to bother about the taxes, benefits, or get into a long-term contract.

5. The businesses houses can literally handover their business into the hands of the expert virtual assistant agency. At the beginning, he or she will deal with tasks that are simple like entering data, managing emails, or making travel arrangements. But with time, as the relationship strengthens, you’ll become completely dependent on them. It will become a trustworthy relationship with time, and then you’re assistant can take up more and more aspects of your professional life.

6. The current Covid situation has managed to put several industries under lock and key due to the lockdowns imposed by the government. Through this lockdown, the spread of the virus was curtailed, but that very step left the companies with no choice other than to shrink their workforce. But now they are facing the biggest questions as to how they will continue with their business? And also how they can make their limited manpower to work from remote locations? 

7. The question of whom they can hire during the lockdown is also paining them immensely. And also they are thinking of whether they will find someone capable of handling the business 24/7 in such tough times. All these questions that are constantly plaguing the minds of the old and the new companies in the same way lies in the appointment of a virtual assistant. 

8. This is where a virtual assistant agency (VA) can help them resolve all the unanswered questions as mentioned above. These individuals can do all the above tasks and provide services to businesses or entrepreneurs remotely. They work for a few hours weekly while freeing up the team’s time to focus on what they are best at.

9. The virtual assistant agency can help by providing the aid required in achieving the organizational goals. Everyone is slowly admitting to the fact that the days when employees were hired for a full time job will soon come to an end due to Covid. And that remote working will become the call of the day. These assistants will make the businesses more streamlined, easily accessible, and immensely helpful for small businesses and new startups to boost up their sales and growth.

Here are some more points that explain how American businesses will be benefited from a Virtual Assistant Agency.

Entrust: It is indeed not possible to work on each and every dimension in the life cycle of a business process. If controlled singlehandedly, it may hamper the efficiency and productivity of the business. It can also cost the new startups an excessive loss of time and slowing down especially in these trying times. A virtual assistant agency can be delegated with tasks that are mundane and monotonous so that the owner can get free time to focus on the most critical areas that demands specialized skills. By off shoring these tasks, they allow the company’s team to have more time for their own.

Scalable: As mentioned before, a virtual assistant agency need not be hired as a permanent staff. They can be hired for different projects, on the basis of their skills and capabilities. Such collaborations enable a business head to easily cope with huge workload without having to worry about rushing on the recruitment process. Their service can be scaled up and down via outsourcing. Through outsourcing, an entrepreneur can scale up his business to new heights. Furthermore, by hiring them, the recruiters will no longer have to bother about the geographical restrictions thus allowing them free access to world-class talent.

Presence: The virtual assistant agency tends to have exceptional experience managing the social media and doing digital marketing. They increase the level and frequency of the posts in social media thereby strengthening the brands identity. Moreover, the presence in the social media helps to connect with the customers promptly. Depending on the targets, they can be asked to focus on some specialized areas on the social media. These areas may involve lead generation, quick responses to customer queries, and ads on the social media.

Money Savings: On hiring a virtual assistant agency, the recruiters no longer worries about the operational expenditures like renting of office space, utility bills, etc. Also, they only charge for the hours they worked thereby eliminating issues like sick leave, health benefits, and taxes. On top of that, they are no longer required to purchase the office equipments like the computers, or telephones for them. And, by hiring these professionals, the training costs could be saved also.

Perks: A virtual assistant agency has great skills in different business procedures and has the expertise in putting forward many cost-effective ways to run a business. They are also skilled in tasks like market research, meeting schedules, sales leads, web development, and many more. Actually, by having these multifaceted skills, they aid in distressing the workload by getting more work done in lesser time. To be precise, they increase the business productivity by being available 24×7. They also decrease the skill gap in a business. This is done by putting special emphasis on the weak areas. This happens because they are committed to providing very trustworthy results. Apart from this, they also give more flexibility to some business areas.

Being a business head can be an extremely demanding and stressful task. If hiring a virtual assistant agency can save you from so much headaches and improve on the work efficiency along with productivity, why wait? Maybe COVID-19 may stay here for some time and will not disappear so soon and the lockdown restrictions will perhaps be imposed for a little longer. So, now is the best time to find out in detail about the options of hiring these assistants. They are the ones who are capable of striking a perfect balance between your work and your personal life!