Three Common Problems Between Clients and Virtual Assistants

One of the main reasons some business owners hesitate to hire virtual assistants is because they can focus on details that may cause complications when developing the work. However, if we pay attention to the details in each of these situations, we can see that there are ways to work in harmony with remote teams.

The important thing is to know how to turn challenges into opportunities, to learn how to do things in a way that works for everyone.

In this article, we are going to share with you some of the main problems that arise when working with virtual assistants and how to deal with them so that your team can work efficiently and take your company where you want it to go.

Communication

It may occur that by not being in the same place as our team, we can have mishaps in communication, or on the contrary, we can end up flooding other people with unnecessary details and meetings that interrupt the workflow. So what can you do to ensure assertive communication with your team?

First of all, it is important to create routines that help them maintain order in their execution of tasks; that is, you must create a system that ensures communication channels as well as establishes effective and necessary meetings once or twice a week to review the week’s goals and results and make adjustments accordingly. In general, we recommend using tools such as Zoom for conferences or meetings with your team which also help you measure the amount of time you are spending on each one so that you do not overdo it.

Another tool that you can take into account is messaging like Slack, which has been in the market for a while and helps your team focus on the tasks and helps you avoid the use and abuse of other messaging tools like WhatsApp which can sometimes be distracting for your team.

In your meetings with your virtual assistants, be concise, take notes of the main points and make a checklist so that you don’t miss anything.

Productivity

Another of the most common problems with remote teams has to do with the productivity that the team is able to achieve if you do not have a person supervising. This is when important details must be taken into account:

1. You must have a team you trust because the basis of all business is relations. Your team of virtual assistants must be one you can count on. You must feel comfortable working with these people and you must know that you can trust them because of the results and commitment they have shown.
2. Since trust is not something that is gained overnight, the first thing you can implement is a tracking tool that helps you know that your virtual assistants are working when it is supposed to be working. For this, there are many options in the market that helps you monitor the activity of your team, create time reports, and even take screenshots from time to time to attach to the reports.

If you take into account some forecasts at the beginning of your working relationship and you realize that your team is doing what it should be doing, you can relax the monitoring and integrate some other measures to reward them for doing the job until eventually, you will only need to maintain good communication since a trusting relationship has been established with them. And though not everything is perfect all the time, most of the time the work will be efficient and productive.

Time Zone

It is quite common that when thinking about outsourcing, the mind goes to India or the Philippines because they are the best-known destinations for business owners in the U.S. However, one of the main problems that can occur is that the time zones are very different from the U.S. and certain barriers to good communication can arise, unless you are hiring staff for night shifts with the extra money that this represents.

If you want to work efficiently with highly trained teams, our recommendation is for nearshore personnel that is Latin American: bilingual professionals who are fully trained to perform the tasks your company needs at a fraction of the cost of a virtual worker in the U.S. (which is the main benefit of remote workers in India and the Philippines). Plus there’s the bonus of living in a time zone quite similar to yours, if not the same.

So if you want to find the best on-shore and off-shore workers, you can book a strategic call with our director Claudia who will connect you with the team that will support you in your same time zone, at a lower cost, and with zero communication or cultural barriers.