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As companies expand, staying on top of the daily tasks that keep the business running becomes increasingly difficult. Keeping operations and administrative needs running smoothly can be tricky when employees wear too many hats. Hiring full-time, on-site support is not always possible, especially if you have a tight budget.
That is where an administrative assistant in Mexico comes in. But what exactly does a virtual administrative assistant do, how can they streamline your business operations, and what are the benefits of choosing the right virtual assistant? Find out below!
What Is a Virtual Administrative Assistant?
A virtual administrative assistant is a remote worker who provides administrative support for you and your business, often part-time. They perform tasks typically done by an executive assistant, such as making phone calls, organizing emails, scheduling appointments, and arranging travel. They can work as independent contractors or as full-time remote workers.
A virtual administrative assistant benefits companies across different industries and sizes. Here is a good rule of thumb: a virtual admin assistant can do almost anything that a full-time on-site assistant can, even if they are working away from the office. Simply put, they can perform any task that can be done via remote access.
Virtual assistants have no particular task set, and assignments vary based on the client. Here are some common tasks of a virtual administrative assistant that can benefit your business:
- Office tasks. Your email inbox, calendar, phone management system, and files are elements of the business that you can offload to a dedicated virtual admin assistant. So long as you do not need to complete the task in the office, a virtual assistant can step in.
- Phone calls. From answering inbound calls to calling customers on your behalf, a virtual admin assistant can serve as your voice and ears when you would rather be doing productive and distraction-free work.
- Remote office management. Although a virtual admin assistant cannot physically set up conference room tables, they can remotely manage many office tasks. For example, they can help with payroll and bookkeeping.
- Bookkeeping. An essential part of running a profitable business is keeping track of finances. Virtual admin assistants can help make purchases, track expenses, and manage the budget.
- Travel arrangements and scheduling. Do you need to follow up on a meeting that a client missed or book a conference? A virtual administrative assistant helps you stay on top of your appointments. A virtual administrative assistant benefits you by boosting your productivity if you often find yourself digging through your calendar.
- Data entry. Not all work falls under the administrative umbrella. Virtual assistants can take on various responsibilities, including data entry services. In this role, they will compile data, verify its accuracy, and remove unnecessary records. Data entry is beneficial for billing, school administration, patient records, and postal work.
- Research. Businesses rely on research—from performance, customer, or market analysis—to inform operations. Research is also a commodity to sell to clients, but it is time-consuming. Companies can use virtual admin assistants specialized in data analysis to compile information since the tasks are often manual.
- Customer service and tech support. A virtual assistant can also help with customer and technical support outsourcing to address basic, repetitive concerns. They can be the first point of contact for shoppers to submit feedback or request help with troubleshooting. This is useful for a small business offering a product or service.
- Content management. Much work involves using content to increase brand awareness, engage potential customers, and drive traffic. A virtual assistant can help organize writing resources, manage the production calendar, and facilitate various aspects of the publishing process.
- Social media production. Although online engagement with potential customers is important, social media management is very demanding. Virtual assistants can help respond to comments and messages from followers. They can also maintain the posting calendar and analyze account data.
How Outsourcing Virtual Administrative Assistant Work Streamlines Your Business
To start, what is business process outsourcing (BPO)? It is the process of offloading a task or an area of operation to a third party. BPO companies can provide a dedicated team of virtual assistants for their clients.
Outsourcing non-core tasks to virtual administrative assistants in Mexico has a lot of benefits. They can handle many daily company tasks and significantly improve your workflow.
Virtual assistants are popular assets for businesses because they are cost-effective and efficient. The virtual assistant market is estimated to reach $25.6 billion by 2025. Current trends show that the industry will only keep growing.
Here are a few ways outsourcing a virtual administrative assistant role can streamline your business:
Allows Distraction-free Work
Suppose you want to work on a project for four clear, distraction-free hours in the morning. Doing so is challenging if you run an office. You must field calls, handle social media, deal with issues that arise, and worry about other admin responsibilities.
Do you want to avoid all of that and work distraction-free? Outsource non-core administrative tasks to a virtual assistant based in Mexico so you can concentrate on the most important tasks of your day.
Handles Receptionist Tasks
Virtual admin assistants commonly perform receptionist tasks remotely from their home offices. A virtual assistant can do more than reception duties, but this is the usual activity assigned to them. They can accomplish the tasks below remotely, saving you the need to hire an in-house receptionist:
- Phone calls and messages
- Appointment reminders and check-ins
- Appointment scheduling and rescheduling
Although a virtual assistant based in Mexico cannot greet visitors who enter your U.S. headquarters, they can easily handle all other duties. Moreover, a virtual administrative assistant benefits you by letting you save on overhead costs since they do not need an office desk on-site.
Reduces the Need for In-house Training
A virtual administrative assistant staffed through a Mexico-based back-office outsourcing provider is not your company’s responsibility to hire, recruit, train, or onboard. The service provider will train professional assistants on your business’s specific needs and teach them the operations they need to handle in the daily workflow, saving you time, money, and energy.
Although outsourcing virtual assistant work to a third party seems like an added expense for your business, it saves you money in the long run. A virtual administrative assistant fits perfectly with daily operations in this new normal, where people have grown accustomed to little to no face-to-face contact.
Streamlines Departmental Tasks
Virtual admin assistants are excellent at managing receptionist tasks, but they can also perform other departmental jobs. For example, a virtual assistant in Mexico can follow up with clients for collections if your accounting and finance departments have too much. They can also monitor accounts payable by ensuring invoices are paid promptly each month.
If you need an extra set of hands, you might consider outsourcing work to virtual assistants. They are flexible, dependable, and overall inexpensive. Outsourcing work to a virtual administrative assistant benefits you because, unlike traditional assistants, they are more willing to perform different duties within their wheelhouse.
Provides Additional Capacity
Suppose you do not require or cannot afford a dedicated call center team yet. However, customer calls are starting to pile up and be a bother. You want your buyers to feel valued by offering customer service with a personal touch, but you do not know how to make time for them and finish your work simultaneously.
A virtual administrative assistant in Mexico can handle calls from anywhere and keep customers in the loop. Outsourcing customer interactions to virtual assistants not only gives you more time to work but also gives you more time off. Instead of working over lunch to finish a task for a project, you can delegate it.
Sends Daily Reminders
Overlooking or forgetting important tasks is catastrophic, especially when you want to streamline your workflow. A Mexico-based virtual administrative assistant helps ensure this never happens and that necessary processes are handled daily. They can remotely send reminders to ensure smooth workflow throughout the office.
Virtual assistant tasks can easily bog you down, especially when revamping your internal workflow. Assuming everything will operate effectively without mistakes is unrealistic. A virtual assistant is prepared to act as an extra set of hands should the need arise.
Streamlines Communications
The internal staff has to screen calls on top of their responsibilities if no one is dedicated to answering phones, which inevitably leads to lower productivity. A virtual administrative assistant can efficiently and effectively handle company phone calls without causing disruptions.
Moreover, they can work on your email inbox based on your guidelines. For instance, they can flag an important email from a client so you can respond to it promptly. Alternatively, they can delete spam and junk emails without you wasting time reading them.
Improves Productivity
Outsourcing work to a virtual administrative assistant in Mexico benefits your organization by improving productivity. Internal staff are more productive because their responsibilities are streamlined. Virtual assistants are more productive and efficient since they work remotely, have a limited range of tasks, and have more flexible schedules.
According to Owl Labs, 90% of remote workers are more productive working from home than in the office. Another study from Stanford shows that remote workers are 13% more productive. Remote workers also have fewer commute times, making accommodating emergencies that usually require employees to take the day off easier.
Why Choose Mexico When Outsourcing Virtual Administrative Assistant Work
Mexico is a premier destination for virtual assistants and outsourcing, with an influx of skilled talent. Here are a few reasons why hire virtual assistants from Mexico is a smart choice:
- Advanced digital ecosystem. Mexico ranked 13th place on Tholons Top 50 Digital Nations List in 2021. This high rank is due to the number of super cities and advanced innovations in the country.
- Modern tech hubs. Mexico has many tech hubs, such as Monterrey, Guadalajara, Tijuana, Yucatan, and Mexico City—each with excellent tech ecosystems and talented professionals.
- Specialized services. Companies can outsource specialized and non-core functions such as human resources and admin or information technology (IT) solutions such as contact center services (CCaaS).
Besides the factors above, hiring virtual administrative assistants in Mexico has many benefits that make it a top destination. Here are some of them.
Real-Time Collaboration with Mexico and the U.S.
Nearshore virtual assistants in Mexico are easier to work with than those from Asia. The country shares or is compatible with most U.S. time zones. It is also close enough for both parties to collaborate in real time and exchange calls using email, Slack, Skype, and other collaboration tools.
In contrast, working with a virtual assistant in India incurs a 10- to 12-hour gap, so even with an attentive staff, you likely will not get a response until the next working day.
Language differences are also not a problem when outsourcing to Mexico. Many Mexicans speak English, especially degree holders. English is the language of business in Mexico, and it is an important skill encouraged in the workplace and when speaking with clients.
Mexican virtual assistants also know from continuous personal development programs and experience how to work with clients from the U.S. You get the same level of commitment and professionalism when managing client expectations or getting the job done in Tijuana as you will in California.
Low Employee Attrition
The competition for top talent in India or Eastern Europe among international firms and foreign businesses is fierce. Of course, talent competition will rise as Mexico becomes more exposed to the international outsourcing market. However, the country’s retention rate is much higher, and the turnover rate of 15% is lower than the 57.3% of the U.S.
A virtual administrative assistant in Mexico benefits clients in the United States since they can start and complete the project with the same staff. A high staff turnover rate means companies lose the output of those who quit. They also lose institutional knowledge and technical solutions to complex problems, which impacts the project.
This also means you receive ongoing support—depending on the terms of the agreement—from the same staff. The reasons to hire virtual admin assistants from Mexico are their commitment to results, professional attitude, and low attrition rate. It shows that BPO companies in the country invest in staff retention and training.
High-Quality Service Delivery
Mexico is increasingly seen as a top destination for American companies in the virtual assistant and IT fields. When hiring a virtual assistant from Mexico, you can expect to receive the same professionalism from the onshore staff. You and your virtual assistant can agree on deliverables, timescales, and processes.
As in the case of any outsourced work, ensuring both parties ask the right questions, listen to one another, and collaborate with transparency is crucial to achieving successful outcomes. Establish a clear process so projects stay on budget and schedule, and keep communication lines open.
One of the perks of using a third-party firm to find virtual assistants is that you get to vet candidates from pre-screened individuals, giving you greater trust and transparency in the work quality you receive from the initial meeting to completion.
High-Cost Advantage of Labor
Finally, one cannot deny that working with a virtual administrative assistant from Mexico offers notable cost benefits. The virtual assistant cost in Mexico is considerably lower, allowing businesses to boost capacity without the expense of higher local salaries for similar skills.
The price of coordinating projects with Mexican staff is significantly more affordable than finding staff locally or in other parts of the world. The risk of misunderstandings or mistakes is also lower with almost real-time collaboration.
Affordable labor, per-hour or per-project rates, and a strong and vibrant workforce mean you can access the skills, experience, and talent necessary for mission-critical projects without the downsides of offshore outsourcing.
How Do You Keep Track of a Virtual Assistant?
Effectively monitoring the work of virtual administrative assistants is necessary to fully reap their benefits. Monitoring their performance involves time tracking. Many tools are available on the market to monitor where virtual assistants spend time, track user activity, and take periodic screenshots.
Virtual admin assistants need a clear set of guidelines to follow. Onboarding remote workers takes longer when you do not have a clear process to follow. Process management tools will help you provide those procedures and track the progress of each task.
Other ways you can monitor a virtual assistant include:
- Setting clear expectations and deadlines. Your virtual assistant should know when and how the work should be done. Your virtual assistants can manage their time better when you set clear expectations. They should know when their deadline is, when they should submit, or how much time they have left to accomplish the task.
- Monitoring worker email activity. Did you know that workers spend 28% of their workday on emails? Knowing they spend time in their inbox is not enough. You must know what exactly is happening. Who are they emailing? How many emails did they send? Use an email tracker to monitor their inbox activity in the background.
- Using project management software. Task and project management apps come in all forms, but they have the same purpose: assigning, organizing, and managing tasks related to a project. The software dashboard shows you when they complete their task or progress in real time.
- Requiring self-reporting. You can implement self-reporting together with digital tracking. You can ask them to send you a brief email report discussing the tasks they are currently working on, how busy they are, if they can take on more tasks, or what problems they encountered.
The Bottom Line
Time is an invaluable resource in business; sometimes, menial and everyday tasks hinder new areas and opportunities for growth. A virtual assistant who handles your administrative work helps ease your workload, freeing up more time for you and your internal team to concentrate on high-impact projects.
Having a nearshore virtual assistant drives business growth by allowing you to increase capacity and scale without taking on full-time, on-site staff. More importantly, leveraging the benefits of nearshore talent, such as a virtual assistant in Mexico, offers lower operating costs and professional service delivery.
Like any other business decision, you must carefully consider the benefits and risks of getting a virtual assistant from Mexico. Use the information in this article to get a head start. You can also contact us to explore outsourcing opportunities in Mexico.
