Are you seasoned veteran secretary in a business or just starting out as a business owner? Whatever the case, your secretarial tasks need managing and can eat up a fair amount of your, or your team’s productivity.
Administration is a key culprit with workers spending on average 14 hours per week managing their inbox.
Think about is this way: If you are able to remove the volume of secretary tasks from your business and free up valuable time, your business can become more productive.
So how do you outsource secretarial tasks?
Outsourcing secretarial tasks to a virtual secretary service has never been easier. The rise in virtual assistants allows businesses to delegate their tasks to an administration expert with ease.
Virtual assistants can be a valuable resource to both large and small businesses which we will cover in this article.
What is a virtual assistant?
Virtual assistants are essentially a remote secretary for your business. They often support multiple businesses for a monthly package, with the business paying for a block of hours each month.
Working remotely, the virtual assistant is delegated tasks and can be relied on to manage business administration functions so that businesses can free up valuable resources.
Common secretary tasks include:
• Answering calls
• Organising client meetings
• Managing office post and deliveries
• Database management
• Formatting excel documents
• Data entry
• Recording minutes of meetings
• Ordering office supplies
• Receptionist duties
The secretary role has been a staple of the common office environment for as long as we can remember. Times are changing, however, and businesses have more options available to them than ever before.
Here are 5 reasons why you should use a virtual secretary service:
1. Streamline costs
Using a virtual secretary can be very cost-effective for businesses. On average, businesses can save 40% on their administration costs by using a virtual secretary on a monthly package.
This allows businesses to re-allocate valuable resources to other areas of the business, while still maintaining quality standards with their administration processes.
To find out more about how businesses can save by outsourcing, read our report here.
With SmartPA’s virtual assistant pricing, businesses are able to scale their monthly package up or down at any time allowing them to adjust for seasonality and peak times of the year. View our pricing here.
2. Only pay for productive time
By using a virtual secretary service to manage your secretarial tasks, you only pay for ‘task time’. That’s the amount of time spent on each task, you don’t pay for anything else.
With a standard employee, during an 8 hour day, less than 3 hours of support is spent on productive time.
With a virtual assistant, businesses don’t have to pay for those coffee breaks or watercooler chats – you only pay for productive time, allowing you to maximise efficiencies while reducing your administration costs.
3. Weekly reporting
This is an amazing benefit of using a virtual secretary service as they will provide accurate reporting on their weekly tasks.
Here at SmartPA, we provide our clients with weekly reporting providing an update to our clients on how much they have used their package. In addition to this, we have a portal that our clients can use to get instant access to their support package information and usage.
4. No training is required
Virtual assistants come with bucket loads of experience and have often worked in several administrative functions across multiple businesses.
This way there is no training required, only onboarding sessions to get up-to-speed with your systems and processes.
In addition to this, virtual assistants tend to be experience professionals in their field. As a result, they can provide recommendations to you and your business on how you can improve the way you manage your secretarial tasks
5. Reduced risk
For growing businesses, taking on new team members to manage departments can be a big commitment. This is particularly relevant with secretary tasks where this part of the business can often get a do-it-yourself attitude.
This, however, can severely damage a business’s productivity and as a result growth and productivity.
By using a virtual secretary company on a flexible, scalable monthly package – there is far less commitment than hiring an employee. A key benefit for growing businesses where resources are limited.
How SmartPA can help
SmartPA empowers professionals to transform the way they work by outsourcing their administrative tasks. Our team of virtual assistants offer the flexibility and tailored capability required to maximise your efficiency.
By using a virtual assistant on a flexible, scalable monthly package – there is far less commitment than hiring an employee. A key benefit for growing businesses where resources are limited.