Businesses go above and beyond to maintain productivity since low productivity leads to a cascade of issues.
Image Source: Clockify
The above graphical image showcases perceived time spent on repetitive tasks across countries.
Thus businesses confined to repetitive and monotonous chores make it difficult for organizations to concentrate on their top priorities.
Studies reveal that lost productivity costs employers $1.8 trillion each year.
To enhance productivity and leverage their resources, companies turn to virtual assistants.
A virtual assistant (VA) is a skilled individual who can manage your schedule, organize your files, answer customer queries, and more.
In essence, using a VA is all about time and money savings.
A Virtual Assistant with the right software tools can effectively manage your daily tasks. They can free up your time so you can focus on your top priorities.
Virtual assistants are a pathway to a higher rate of productivity for organizations. They increase the efficiency of tasks thus improving productivity.
A study shows that 72% of small business owners feel overburdened by their responsibilities and the volume of work at hand. 64% of business owners believe they need to delegate more duties to experience less stress.
Thus delegating tasks to a virtual assistant can increase the efficiency and productivity of any business. And a great way to understand productivity is to define KPIs and goals. Clocking in and out is the wrong way to measure productivity because it doesn’t tell you if work happened.
While working with a virtual assistant, the biggest roadblocks to productivity are poor communication and a lack of the right productivity tools.
Also read: 7 wonders a virtual assistant can bring to your world
There are modern technology and software tools developed for virtual assistants to complete tasks faster. The following are the best virtual assistant software tools accessible online. These tools can help virtual assistants finish their work in managing appointments, social media management, time tracking, communicating with clients, and more.
Virtual assistants live in different parts of the world and work at different time zones. And, it becomes difficult to time track and run payroll smoothly.
To this extent, businesses need a reliable time tracking tool to calculate the number of hours a virtual assistant works.
A good time tracking tool not only calculates the number of hours a virtual assistant works but also gives the time utilized protecting businesses from time theft.
Time Doctor is a time-tracking and employee productivity management tool. From big to small organizations, use Time Doctor to enhance employee productivity.
The tool allows businesses to:
Hubstaff aids businesses in monitoring the efficiency and output of virtual assistants. It enables organizations to automate timesheets for virtual assistants without the hassle of manually tracking hours.
The tool provides in-depth information that makes it evident how VA operates. Businesses can monitor data like activity levels and the amount of time spent on particular websites and apps.
Organizations may acquire thorough reports on the virtual assistant work and track their performance using a dashboard.
Working with a virtual assistant involves plenty of file sharing and document management. Emailing files is outdated and time-consuming.
Businesses can use file-sharing tools to streamline document storage, sharing, and work collaboration. Some software even lets organizations edit and organize files in real-time.
Here are some of the best tools for file sharing and storing with virtual assistants:
Over 500,000 companies utilize Dropbox, a reputable file-sharing service. It allows businesses to streamline the work of virtual assistants.
Businesses may draft documents, make modifications, and maintain files from one site. The tool is designed for enterprises and has many admin features suitable for businesses of any size.
The Box allows limitless storage and document management when employing virtual assistants. Along with excellent security safeguards, the tool has 256-bit encryption.
Using Box, businesses can lock data and limit access only to an individual virtual assistant. Therefore, organizations can utilize Box to limit their virtual assistant's access to only particular files and data.
An effective social media management tool allows businesses to:
The following tools can make managing social media for virtual assistants simpler:
Virtual assistants can handle all the company's social media accounts by connecting their social media profiles to Buffer.
Additionally, Buffer offers a feature that permits multiple users to access the account. Thus, it makes it easy for companies to monitor virtual assistants' performance while they work on it.
Image Source: Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a popular social media tool that allows businesses to schedule and manage content on all their social media pages.
Using Hootsuite’s inbox feature enables virtual assistants to track, view, and respond to followers’ messages across all social media platforms from a single place.
Businesses can assign work to virtual assistants and keep an eye on them with the help of advanced team collaboration tools from Hootsuite.
Additionally, utilize the courses available on Hootsuite to train their virtual assistants to improve their social media skills and gain certifications to demonstrate to potential clients.
Related: What You Need to Know About Social Media Virtual Assistants
Virtual assistants can do their work with the help of precise documentation.
These document-based tools help virtual assistants become proficient in their work. As business practices change, the virtual assistant also assists businesses in keeping their paperwork current.
Here are the tools listed to help businesses to organize their business operations.
Businesses can design checklists and procedures to direct virtual assistants through their work using Process Street, a workflow management platform.
Businesses can maintain accuracy and consistency in their work using this effective tool. Additionally, Process Street makes task execution simpler by streamlining onboarding and removing uncertainty.
Trainual allows businesses for procedural documentation. It eases the onboarding of virtual assistants. For virtual assistants to understand corporate procedures, it saves company regulations and produces playbooks to direct each stage of a work process.
The tool empowers businesses to turn their business procedures into training programs. Companies can even use built-in templates to create their personalized company policies.
Meeting with virtual assistants or allowing them to plan concurrent sessions with clients can be difficult. Video conferencing is a great way to collaborate with virtual assistants to have business conversations.
Use these tools to make working with virtual assistants easy:
An interactive whiteboard, screen sharing, cross-platform discussion, and online meeting scheduling all contribute to the efficiency of business meetings.
Zoom is a video conferencing tool widely used to collaborate, hold meetings, and host virtual events.
The tool features group chat, video webinars, virtual conference rooms, and a business phone system, making them ideal virtual assistant software.
Zoom has advanced privacy and security features ensuring business data protection while working with virtual assistants.
Virtual assistants relieve enterprises of the administrative strain that clogs entrepreneurs' workdays. Companies may utilize virtual assistants' full potential, save time, and maximize their investment with the help of the appropriate software solutions.
An effective virtual assistant tool can:
Here are some more tools to help businesses make the most of virtual assistants.
A good project management tool can help businesses to:
Consider your current and future needs while choosing the best tool for your team. To avoid wasting time transferring data during growth, pick a technology that can scale with you.
Image Source: Asana
Asana helps companies manage their projects effectively. It offers a team management feature that enables enterprises to set up teams in the tool with their virtual assistants.
Businesses using Asana can safeguard their sensitive data by only providing virtual assistants access to the data they need.
Organizations can easily delegate tasks to their virtual assistants, follow them, share projects with them, or make notes of them in task comments.
Additionally, its extensive workspace features let businesses organize teams, projects, and tasks and get informed of progress, eliminating the need for time-consuming back-and-forth email threads.
Basecamp is a simple project management tool designed to help organizations work remotely. It enables businesses to organize projects in a single place eliminating the need to go back and forth over small details or look for important files.
With Basecamp, it's simple to stay connected with virtual assistants. Businesses can access this virtual assistant software on the web and even on their iOS or Android smartphones and tablets.
CRM plays a critical role in any business as it consists of crucial information about customer data. It provides a complete understanding of any business.
These CRM tools are vital for a virtual assistant to maintain client data and increase sales.
Salesforce has this feature to set up to do and record anything a sales team wants, which is its greatest attribute.
It helps virtual assistants in sales with:
With the help of Hubspot, businesses can combine meetings, automated templates, and sales processes.
Even better, companies may combine Hubspot's CRM with their marketing automation software.
Using Hubspot, businesses can build email campaigns and qualify and score leads.
Hubspot CRM features:
Organizations need to hire virtual assistants to handle their administrative needs. Although hiring a virtual assistant is easy, managing them can be difficult. The specialized virtual assistant software discussed here can help you get the most out of your virtual resource.