What to ask before hiring a virtual assistant
If you are looking for a virtual assistant for your small business it’s important to have some questions prepared before you hire a VA.
Just as you would interview and vet new staff before you hire them, you need to do the same with your virtual assistant by asking questions.
Virtual assistants usually do a consultation when taking on new clients and starting new projects. The consultation is to learn more about their client’s needs. During the consultation, the virtual assistant guides you through a series of questions.
The consultation would also be the perfect time for you to also ask the virtual assistant some questions to make sure that you’ve also got everything covered on your side.
Of course, you’ll ask questions relating to their skills and experience. But there are five important questions most people forget to ask when they are hiring a virtual assistant.
These questions are so important that if forgotten consequences include financial losses as well as stress.
It doesn’t matter if you’re using a virtual assistant you found in an online marketplace, or if you’re using a professional virtual assistant company.
You should ask your virtual assistant these questions to avoid miscommunication and to discover exactly how the virtual assistant can help your business.
Virtual assistant questions
Below are five questions most people forget to ask when hiring a virtual assistant.
1.) How many clients are you working with?
This is not an intrusive question. You have a right to know.
You have a right to know how many clients your virtual assistant is working with so you can make an informed decision if you want to work with the V.A. So don’t be afraid to ask.
If you had the option of two different virtual assistants, both with the perfect skills for your next project. If one of them is working with two clients and the other is working with seven, which one would you want to work with?
I am sure you would want to work with the virtual assistant who has more time to produce higher quality work.
If your virtual assistant helps your business to grow then chances are you are going to want to hire them to do even more in the future, so if a VA’s time is already taken up by lots of different clients that won’t be possible.
Asking your virtual assistant how many clients they are working with allows you to have a choice about the matter. If you don’t ask then you don’t have a choice. You could end up with a virtual assistant that does not have sufficient time to dedicate to your tasks.
As a virtual assistant, my job is to multi-task not juggle, that’s why at Prime PA we don’t work with more than three clients at the same time.
We may take on additional one-off tasks during less busy periods, but we never work with more than three retainer clients at once.
It’s important that your virtual assistant has enough time to complete your task to a high standard.
2) Are you the virtual assistant that will complete my tasks or is it outsourced?
Some virtual assistants provide services that they outsource to other virtual assistants. So it may not necessarily be the person you assume that is actually completing your work.
If a virtual assistant has admin skills they may also offer video editing services in addition to admin. They might outsource the video editing to another virtual assistant because they don’t have the expertise or because they don’t have the time to do it themselves.
It’s important for you to have direct communication with the person who is completing the work so you can make sure you are hiring the right person.
3) What security and protection do you have in place?
Virtual assistants handle passwords for clients as well as other sensitive information.
Before handing over such information to your virtual assistant you need to find out what security measures they already have in place.
This information is usually included within their security policy. If they don’t have a clear policy stating what security measures they have in place then you should not work with them as you may be taking a huge security risk, especially if the virtual assistant has access to financial information.
4) When are you available to contact?
As a virtual assistant who regularly does consultations with clients I know it’s important to always ask when the client is available to be contacted.
Many clients however do not ask when their virtual assistant is available to be contacted.
This can cause a problem if you need to make some changes to work that your virtual assistant has already started.
So once your VA is aware of your availability make sure to find out when they are available, and the best method of contact to use. This makes communicating with your virtual assistant a smoother process.
You may be thinking this is very obvious, but what’s not so obvious and that you should consider is that some virtual assistants work with multiple clients at a time. Therefore they can not always dedicate 100% of their availability to you, as they still have to make time for their other clients.
What they can do though is give you a specific time frame for calls.
Ask your virtual assistant for their availability or schedule.
Ask for a specific time or timeframe when your virtual assistant is available to talk or email you.
At Prime PA when providing virtual assistant services, as well as providing progress updates we offer clients the option to schedule a call during their VA’s available hours. This way if there are any changes they want to discuss, they would still have the opportunity to do so.
So if my availability is six hours, and I have three clients I don’t have to just offer them a two-hour window each. I can leave a six-hour window open for them to choose when they want me to contact them.
It’s convenient for our clients, they can schedule a chat with me directly using my online calendar.
If you are working with a virtual assistant from an online marketplace, most platforms typically don’t include features like online scheduling. Therefore you are usually limited to only communicating with your VA on the platform.
You can ask your VA what time they will be on the platform. You might also be able to tell when your VA is logged in to the online marketplace as some platforms highlight when a freelancer is online.
Some outsourcing marketplaces also show you the V.A.’s response rate. This can give you an indication of how fast you’re likely to receive a response from them.
Usually, when you send a message from a freelancing platform to the VA the message is also sent to the virtual assistant’s email address. So it may be more useful to know when they monitor and respond to their emails as opposed to when they are active on the platform.
They may receive emails when they are away from the platform as long as they have their notifications on, you will need to check this with your VA.
If you are communicating with your VA by email it’s worth considering that if you’re both not available within the same time frame this could cause delays. For example, if your virtual assistant sends you a question while you are not available, and you reply when they are not available. You would both end up waiting longer for each other’s responses.
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The following story was inspired by a recent client of mine who had a negative experience with another virtual assistant they hired from an online marketplace.
This is not the first time a client has told me a story of their poor experience with another VA.
If the client had asked the VA the right questions before hiring them the experience would have been positive.
This is what happened,
I received a call from a client who said he was looking for a virtual assistant.
I asked him if he had ever worked with a virtual assistant before.
He sounded irritated as he started to explain that he already had a virtual assistant but hadn’t been able to get hold of her for four days.
I then asked, when did she say she is available?
He said Monday to Friday nine to five.
The client hired the VA through an online marketplace where she began doing regular work for him.
The client then began to work with the virtual assistant outside of the platform.
The client usually receives completed tasks from the VA by midday on Mondays. Last Monday he also expected to receive the completed task as he usually does.
But on Monday it had reached 2:00 pm, and he hadn’t received anything or heard anything from his VA, so he sent her an email and he got no response.
Tuesday went by and still no message. He sent another email, Wednesday and Thursday went by and he still hadn’t heard from her.
That’s when he decided to call us to look for a new virtual assistant.
Because the client had met the VA through an online marketplace and she was able to complete tasks on the platform on time, he assumed he would receive the same level of service offline.
He didn’t realise the virtual assistant could be here today and gone tomorrow.
Unfortunately, this is the reality of online marketplaces. Your virtual assistant could be there one day serving all your needs and then the next day ‘’poof’’ their gone.
I understand his frustration she should have given him some notification that she will not be able to complete the tasks on time. However, because he didn’t have any type of contract in place with the VA, and they didn’t discuss whether she had plans to stick around for the long term, she is not obligated to continue being his virtual assistant.
Eventually, he did receive an email from her saying she was unavailable and has taken a break from being a virtual assistant for a while.
He wasn’t very impressed when he read the message.
If he had asked the right questions he would have known to check her long-term availability, and he would not have chosen her as his virtual assistant. He suffered financial losses due to the work not being completed on time.
Sometimes you have to make mistakes so that you can learn from them. Luckily you came across this article so you won’t have to. All you have to do is remember to ask these three questions about your virtual assistant’s availability.
Questions to ask your virtual assistant
- When are they available to contact?
- What method are they available for contact?
- How long are they available – long-term or short-term?
As a professional virtual assistant, every single question listed here is something we cover with our clients.
We answer these questions without you having to ask.
There’s no point in losing you as a customer during the consultation before we have even won you.
5) Why should I choose you as a virtual assistant?
If you are hiring a VA for a one-off task then this question may not be necessary.
However, if you’re hiring a V.A. to do recurring work for you then you should ask what specifically they can do for you and your business that another virtual assistant can’t.
Some virtual assistants offer services or have skills that increase their value above others.
Those are the main five questions clients forget to ask virtual assistants.
If you found this useful, download a free virtual assistant delegation pack, it includes a full list of questions to ask before hiring a virtual assistant and a delegation list click here to download.
