Virtual Assistant Defined

You are browsing through the net searching for outsourcing and you see several job hiring for the virtual assistant post, you wonder, what is a virtual assistant? What does he/she do? You might feel left out because you think you are the only one who doesn’t know what virtual assistant is.

Don’t fuss around, you are not alone. There are many people who don’t know what it means. Virtual Assistant is. Many people would think of a computer when they hear the word virtual, thus they think of a computer when they hear a virtual assistant… a computer assistant.

This just goes to show that the concept of virtual assistance is so new that many people do not know it. But there are already business owners who hire these untapped services to make their business more productive and less stressful.

What is a Virtual Assistant?

According to Wikipedia.com, a virtual assistant (typically abbreviated to VA, also called a virtual office assistant) is generally self-employed and provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients remotely from a home office.

They are called virtual because these people are not with you, they can be from another country or another city, as you can communicate with them through e-mails, chat, Skype and/or phone.

What are the tasks a Virtual Assistant does?

There are many tasks a virtual assistant can do, it really depends on the person as they have different strengths and weaknesses. Many outsourcing firms give out VAs that are well-educated, well-rounded and in general, good to meet the demands and needs of the clients. The tasks of VAs are:

• Data Entry and Processing
• Transcribing —transferring information from documents to spreadsheets.
• Customer Service
• Customer Relation duties
• Transcription
• Web Management
• Social Media Duties
• Payroll
• Book keeping
• Accounting
• Graphic Designing

There are sure a lot of tasks that a virtual assistant is expected to do, pretty much, it’s like an office assistant who’s dealing with you virtually.