More and more people are now interested to make use of virtual assistants in order to help them boost their productivity. The question that you might be asking is whether these virtual assistants can be really useful? In truth I don’t think there is a clear cut answer to this question and it will depend on a lot of factors. What I can do is to list the different advantages and disadvantages of employing a virtual assistant and it will be up to you to take the most appropriate decision for your business.
Advantages
Cost Benefits
The main advantage that is associated with virtual assistant is that they are cheap. This can allow you to decrease your cost of production and thus increase your profit.
Work during your sleep
Given that most virtual assistants come from Eastern countries, this can allow you to have workers that will be working during your sleep. When you will be entering your office in the morning you will be able to resume work as quickly as possible. This can be a real boost for productivity especially if you need to do some boring and repetitive tasks.
New ideas
Dealing with other cultures and people can allow you to generate some new ideas. This may allow you to find more effective or even new solutions to problems that you may have overlooked in the past.
Disadvantages
Quality issues
You should remember that you get what you pay for. It is important that you make sure that the service that you will be getting is of good quality. The key here is to find out what other people are saying of the service before hiring your virtual assistant.
Communication
Given the distance barrier and also the cultural differences it can be difficult for you to communicate properly. You should keep this in mind when employing a virtual assistant.
Most of the service providers will provide you a free trial where you can assess the quality of their service. It is during this period that you should consider all communication problems.
Accountability
It is important to have a contact person especially if you are dealing with a team of virtual assistants. This might be really important if you have some last minute change and you do not know who is in charge of your project.
As you have seen there are numerous advantages and disadvantages that are associated with the fact of hiring a virtual assistant. The key here is to make sure that the virtual assistant will add value to your business and will indeed help to boost productivity.
Enough of the talking now and I will like to hear from you. Do you think virtual assistant is beneficial for businesses or is it more of a hindrance? Please share your views below.
Charles Borromeo is the writer behind Justice-Explained.com, a site devoted to explain legal questions in layman’s terms. He is also a passionate blogger during his free time.
