The primary responsibility of a virtual assistant is to provide administrative support to your business. This can consist of answering phone calls, inputting data, conducting research, and dealing with customers.
The person you hire must have impeccable organisational skills to manage your daily calendar, update customer spreadsheets, and perform other administrative tasks.
Often business owners are reluctant to hire virtual assistants or don’t make the best use of their skills because they don’t identify what tasks and responsibilities they need virtual assistants to do.
Let me show you what their typical duties should be in order to formulate an accurate virtual assistant job description.
Key VA Duties And Responsibilities
1 – File, Scan, And Copy Documents
Small business owners hire virtual assistants for administrative support because they can prove invaluable in helping to free up time.
Your other staff can focus on their primary roles while the administrative assistant is responsible for the scanning, copying, and filing of business documents.
While filing documents may be regarded as a mundane task, it is still a crucial part of virtual assistant responsibilities. These duties can be done alongside answering phone calls and managing email enquiries.
Having excellent organisational virtual assistant skills is vital. For example, the last thing you want is for all your business documents to be filed incorrectly.
2 – Prepare Presentation And Document Templates
When a virtual assistant provides administrative support, it can be done in various ways. One essential task is creating documents after conducting online research to include in business presentations.
To do these tasks to an excellent standard, the virtual assistant must communicate to a very high standard, both verbally and in written form. Excellent computer skills will also be required.
When creating business presentations, an experienced virtual assistant will be tech-savvy, allowing them to present their statistical data in a way that is engaging to the target audience.
Excellent research skills will ensure all the statistical data is correct, which is paramount to ensure the presentation runs smoothly while also using excellent communication skills.
3 – Maintain Active Social Media Presence
A virtual assistant job description will commonly include management of all social media. This includes posting new social media content and engaging with potential customers via various social media platforms.
As a small business owner, you can’t manage everything, so handing responsibility to your virtual assistant for all your various social media accounts will take the pressure off.
Modern businesses don’t rely only on their company website to convey their message. Instead, excellent use of social media can help you reach a far broader audience in a timely manner.
Being adept at using different software programmes geared towards social media will be essential for your virtual assistant if they work in a fast-paced environment and deliver high-quality work.
A solid and engaging social media presence can drive your business to the next level in terms of building a brand and generating turnover, so social media management is vital.
4 – Calendar Management
Excellent calendar management is one of the most vital virtual assistant requirements.
Scheduling meetings to include in online business calendars is an essential part of your virtual assistants’ job.
Other virtual assistant responsibilities related to calendar management may include making travel arrangements for business meetings or presentations.
Having excellent organisational and communication skills is vital when dealing with the daily calendar of an executive assistant or business director.
Your virtual assistant will have to display excellent interpersonal skills as they will be responsible for scheduling meetings with various people from your company and essential clients.
5 – Manage Data Entry
Being able to manage data entry will always feature highly on all virtual assistant job description forms.
Compiling data and ensuring it is correct and always up to date may be boring, but it is a vital part of a virtual assistant’s role and must be taken seriously.
Having incorrect data concerning your company or an outside source will make it impossible for managers and directors to analyse it in the right way.
As data management is seen as a task that needs little supervision, it is ideal for those who work from a remote location.
6 – Take Care Of Office Supplies
As well as taking care of administrative tasks a virtual assistant will be responsible for office supplies.
These duties are wide-ranging, meaning that your virtual assistant will deal with the logistics of the everyday running of an office. Keeping office supplies well stocked is vital to ensure you don’t run low on essential office stationery.
Duties will also include organising transport and travel arrangements for staff to attend meetings outside the office.
Please make sure you clearly define the duties you wish your virtual assistant to perform in their job description concerning taking care of office supplies.
7 – Maintain Bookkeeping
Various administrative tasks may require more than just a high school diploma. For example, when you hire a virtual assistant to maintain your bookkeeping, they must be excellent at working with figures.
As your virtual assistant works independently, you want them to need minimum supervision when keeping online records of your business accounts, such as customer payments and receipts and salary data.
In addition, they will also have to keep track of all office bills, such as office equipment and stationery, as well as subscriptions to cloud services or mobile phone bills.
8 – Work On Lead Generation Efforts
Lead generation is vital in any business, and an excellent virtual assistant can help enhance your lead generation efforts with the role they perform.
A virtual assistant position isn’t just about handling basic administrative queries. With the correct time management, your virtual assistant can create databases of all local businesses that may be interested in your product or service.
This database will allow you to contact your target business audience via email or verbal communication.
You also have to ensure your current customers are satisfied with your service. Knowing where you can improve your service could lead to additional business opportunities.
We Can Help You Manage All VA Duties
The virtual assistant job description must be tailored to your requirements when hiring. Doing so will help things run smoothly.
If you wish to hire an executive assistant, you must write the job description to suit the role.
For a hands-off approach when employing a new member of staff, call us to find out how we can deal with the sourcing, hiring, training and management of your virtual assistant.
We have many years of experience and a large pool of VAs ready to take on your work.