Most companies have shifted to online operations in recent years, and this influx has increased the demand for virtual assistant services. Skilled virtual assistants (VA) are a major asset to any business that wants to scale.
Virtual assistant services offer several benefits:
- They ensure you don’t fall behind on some tasks
- They offer a quick turnaround
- They cost a fraction of hiring a full-time employee.
VA support also frees your time, and you can concentrate on boosting profits and productivity.
It doesn’t matter the industry a business is in — a VA can easily perform most business tasks and help you succeed.
Here are nine industries that can benefit from virtual assistant services.
Legal
Law firms are known for handling repetitive, time-consuming tasks like:
- Legal transcription
- Research
- Email, and
- Calendar management
Virtual assistants can help accomplish these tasks, including back office tasks such as invoicing and bookkeeping, that require little training.
Regardless of the type of legal practice you focus on, VA support offers help with any work overflow. Virtual assistant services also lessen the burden — law firms can focus on other profitable tasks.
Marketing
Marketing is a dynamic and challenging industry that requires you to be always on your toes to develop an effective marketing strategy.
With 4.26 billion social media users, many marketing firms need help with market research, social media management, Ads, and blogging.
Virtual assistants can handle all these marketing tasks.
By having support in these areas, your marketing firm can devote its time to critical tasks and become more efficient in achieving its goals.
Real Estate
Real estate is a fast-paced industry. Due to its competitiveness, it’s easy to lose track of tasks to fall through the cracks. So, realtors need high support to cover ground with their clients while increasing revenue.
As a realtor, you can outsource VAs to:
- Update open house information
- Update MLS listings
- Handle buyers
- Generate leads
- Manage listings
- Answer customer queries
- Set appointments
- Verify agreements and documents
These and other repetitive roles don’t require skills and experience in real estate and are best outsourced to VAs.
Finance
The financial industry has huge workloads that demand detail and accuracy, making it even more challenging.
Your firm can focus on monitoring clients’ finances, consulting, and finding growth opportunities while outsourcing secondary roles to VAs.
They can help with several tasks, such as:
- Helping with general admin roles
- Preparing financial records
- Sending invoices
- Following up on accounts receivable
- Updating the book of accounts
The business can opt for a virtual assistant who is a certified public accountant to maintain its finances and cut the cost of hiring a full-time accountant.
Start-Ups
Most start-ups have limited budgets and resources. Hiring a virtual assistant to care for their business needs makes more budgetary sense.
VAs help startups save money and time by handling several repetitive tasks, such as:
- Customer communication
- Bookkeeping
- Responding to product questions from potential customers
- Converting leads to sales
- Cold calling
Virtual assistant services should help generate more revenue and profit for the business and not increase expenses. You should balance how much you spend on outsourcing a VA versus how much revenue it generates.
IT and Technology
The IT and technology industry is the best example of maximizing virtual assistants for growth and profitability.
In fact, it was among the earliest industries to discover the benefits of virtual assistant services.
Technical customer support, admin support, and website development are some of the most commonly outsourced IT solutions. Virtual assistants are ideal for routine tasks such as troubleshooting, which can be done remotely with minimal training.
Your team can focus on simpler, in-house tasks like cleaning computer keyboards and maintaining optimal performance.
E-commerce
As much as running an e-commerce business may seem easy since customers are purchasing online, it requires significant administrative and operational assistance.
This assistance helps e-commerce businesses to keep up with stock management, order processing, and customer service.
Virtual assistant services can lighten the workload by taking care of admin and operational tasks and help you run the business effectively.
VAs can handle customer support queries, inventory sourcing, shipping, and daily operations as the business focuses on other activities.
What’s more, it’s now easier to bring VAs on board if you’re conducting your e-commerce business on Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, or eBay.
Healthcare
Like in other industries, virtual assistants also contribute positively to healthcare. They can schedule appointments, respond to queries, streamline patient discharge and records management, and manage calendars.
The best thing about hiring a VA, especially for a busy healthcare office, is that it offers flexibility and timeliness.
It’s common for medical professionals to cancel appointments because of overwhelming work demands. Virtual assistants can help to immediately communicate these changes to patients.
Having real and responsive human support in healthcare makes a significant difference in building exceptional customer service.
Human Resources
Human Resources is another dynamic industry that demands a substantial network of client relations and personal connections.
Virtual assistants can take over administrative tasks and other recruiting tasks like job screening that don’t require expertise.
They offer services such as document formatting, email management, schedule management, and report preparation to save time.
HRs can also train the VA on project-based jobs without providing company benefits. Not only does hiring a VA reduce labor costs, but they are also an asset in recruitment operations.
In Closing
Apart from these ten industries discussed above, any industry can benefit from virtual assistant services. From cutting hiring costs, freeing up your time, and increasing productivity, no industry can ignore the rewards of hiring a virtual assistant.