As the roles of the virtual assistant continue expanding due to the increase in the amercement of this career, things are getting better for them. Surprisingly, while under normal circumstances, increasing roles are supposed to mean more pressure on a worker in the VA world, things are different.
Traditional VAs were fixated on roles similar to the office assistant who manages boring paperwork, handles tedious typing or writing chores and hangs around for the boss to order them around. However, the new crop of VA has more interesting work. We’re now managing social media, acting on behalf of our bosses, booking appointments for them, managing their communications, sending out emails, hiring for them, and the list goes on.
The best part about these extra roles is that most of them can be automated! In the light of this amazing revelation, let’s see how automation systems can be used in the VA business:
- Engaging Clients
Avid users of social media are aware that most social sites as well as websites have automated systems that engage the users when real people are away. For example, if you send a message to a large organization like Amazon via Facebook, an automated system responds by letting you know that your message has been received and you will be attended to soon.
This and other similar auto-response systems are useful in blogs and sites. They can assist clients in some areas by using keywords and client queries. In this way, the VA has their “assistant” as well, and this reduces their work.
- Making Payments
The other popular automated systems used by VAs are payment mechanisms. In today’s world, a VA has to pay subscriptions and also receive payments. Judging by the many payments that leave and arrive at a VA’s table, they can be overwhelming.
Luckily for the VA, there are now pre-programmed systems that can be used to make and receive payments. They can be attached to financial systems such as bank accounts or smart cards. Then, depending on the programming, they can pay other systems or receive money on behalf of the virtual assistant.
- Emailing
Emailing is the most used form of communication by most VAs. At some point, a VA might need to communicate a single message to multiple parties at a go. Again, they might have multiple email accounts to manage.
Well, there are automated emailing programs that can do the above tasks for a VA. They only need to be fed with the messages and distribution lists and then they can deliver them. On the second matter, there are systems that will manage multiple email accounts from one point, allowing the VA to remain updated of incoming emails.
- Scheduling
No VA can survive without using a planning or scheduling tool. In this case, a calendar is the best-suited tool for this need. A VA will need to be reminded to make calls, book appointments, submit work, make follow-ups, send emails, book flights, make payments and so on.
Without a tool to remind them of these tasks, they might forget some or handle them late. This is a forgotten problem since there are many applications such as Google Calendar that can save important dates and remind the user in advance, as per their preferences.
Judging from these examples of VA business automation, the last thing that a VA should be worried about is excess work, poor scheduling, late payments and delayed communication.
Automation saves them all the work!
Here are some of my favorite automation tools: Dubsado CRM, Calendly, Asana, Google Calenda, Zapier, just to list a few 🙂