FAQ
Besides a basic $750 month-to-month rate, we offer discounted rates for contract period of 3 months. There is a $200 one-time set-up fee for first-time accounts to establish all necessary functionalities, including setting up one US telephone number with your desired area code, workstation and PC setup with testing to ensure compatibility with your system. In addition we provide free of charge a secure permission based remote access to your PC for IT issues on an as need basis.
Depending on staff availability, we may be able to provide a FREE ONE WEEK, no risk trial period. Please contact us to discuss.
1.What is a Virtual Assistant?
Virtual Assistants (VAs) are knowledge-workers who use technology to render services from an offsite location. Dramatic advances in internet and communications technologies have enabled the virtual worker community to grow noticeably in the past year or so.
2.What services are offered by VAs?
Most VAs offer high value project-type services such as Web design, IT support, market research and language translations.
Some offer prepaid hourly administrative services in which a pool of VAs will have multiple clients. In this set-up, a client would most likely deal with a different person for each call.
VAs are independent workers who, for various economic or lifestyle considerations, have left the corporate workforce to go on business on their own. Most of them work out of their homes.
There are many flavors of VA services offered on the Internet. Some services are offered via loose networks of individual VAs who offer specialized services.
Some represent themselves as real companies with VAs working for them. Be careful. It may not only be the VAs that are virtual, but the companies themselves may be virtual and act only as the marketing and billing portal for free-lance VAs.
3.What other things should I know when looking for a VA online?
Here some good questions to ask a prospective VA provider:
•Where does your VA work? Does your VA work in an office or out of their homes? Insist on a specific location. A professionally managed, IT-supported work place is more reliable and efficient.
•Are the VAs your employees or are they free-lance workers? If you ever have service quality issues, you might have to deal directly with a free-lance worker without adequate technical support.
•Will I work with the same VA or will I be passed around to a different VA each time I call? If you need continuity and have a steep learning curve for your tasks, getting a different VA every time you or your customers call will be very frustrating. Working with the same VA fosters a trusting relationship and an effective daily work routine.
•Are all the charges clearly indicated? Go beyond the hourly quoted rate. Ask if phone calls are already covered in the quoted rate.
•Who will resolve service delivery issues? Find out what happens if, when you or your client calls, no VA is around to take the call.
4.How is an Assistforce VA different from other Virtual Assistants I see on the Internet?
Assistforce services are focused on the basic day-to-day tasks of running a small business or professional office. Assistforce targets long-term relationships during which time you would be working with the same VA. We believe that repeated daily interactions with the same hard-working professional will build confidence, trust and efficient processes that will greatly enhance the value of your VA to your business.
Your Assistforce VA would be an experienced college graduate. She would be employed and work in a professionally managed, state-of-the-art business office with full HR and IT support. Your VA will have full back-up to ensure uninterrupted coverage. Your Assistforce VAs would be a professional and look her work as a real job, not just a temporary situation.
Assistforce service terms are “plug and play”. Our contracts are simple and transparent. Everything you will need for an immediate and productive partnership with your VA is covered in our service contract. Your full costs are clearly disclosed. If you are not happy with the service, you can unplug quickly and without fuss.
Assistforce is a California-based company. Customer service issues are handled in San Francisco at (415) 593-5523.
5.The same VA will be working for me everyday? So my Assistforce VA is like my employee?
Effectively, yes. Like an employee, the same VA will report to you for work everyday and perform routine but vital tasks during your entire work-day.
However, unlike an employee, your VA would not require you to maintain employment records and paperwork for regulatory reporting. Your VA would not require you to provide equipment, office space, supplies, HR and IT support, and other overhead. Your administrative support will be an outside service for which the only required reporting is a form 1099.
If your Assistforce VA cannot report for work (like regular employees, she might get sick or will want holiday time), we will provide coverage during your VA’s absence.
6.Why would I need an Assistforce VA?
If you already have an administrative assistant, an Assistforce VA would expand or maintain your existing administrative services at a huge fraction of the cost of hiring regular on-site administrative support.
If you have not enjoyed reliable administrative support before, an Assistforce VA would allow you to quickly, and with minimal cost and risk, try out the force multiplying benefits of an administrative assistant into your business. For instance, you might find that a large part of your day is tied up being put on hold, waiting for return calls, repeatedly tweaking your calendar to manage your appointments, culling through email, and the other small but necessary minutiae of running a business. Well, what if all that time is freed up so you could be actually doing productive, revenue-generating work? And, having freed up your time to do productive work, wouldn’t you like direct support to generate new sales and help cash flow?
7.My Assistforce VA can help generate new sales?
Your Assistforce VA is trained to do simple but time-consuming tasks to generate new customer leads. Their basic customer-prospecting skills include:
a.Making cold calls or Internet market research to generate new leads.
b.Email marketing by helping manage lists.
c.Using different online channels to increase product awareness including websites, blogs, webinars and maintaining social network profiles.
d.Offline channel – help filter and manage lists for offline campaigns such as postcards, newsletters, etc.
Of course, these skills can only be effectively applied in support of your activities. For example, you will need to prepare your own scripts for cold calls and you will need to provide clear instructions for your sales and marketing activities.
In addition, your Assistforce VAs can support your billing and collection efforts by making follow-up calls or email. Also, your Assistforce VA can maintain that “soft touch” needed to retain customers.
8.Tell me more about cost savings.
With your Assistforce VA, you would not need to keep invested in infrastructure and overhead. You would avoid all expenses related to regulatory reporting and paperwork associated with an employee or on-site contractors. Costs of recruitment and termination are also avoided.
Direct wages is a more complex issue. VAs based in the US charge more per hour than regular employees. On the other hand, advanced, reliable, and cost-efficient voice and data technologies allow access to our educated, experienced and skilled English-speaking Assistforce VAs. Your Assistforce VA would provide comparable quality service with her US-based counterparts at lower hourly costs.
A survey conducted by the IAAP (http://www.iaap-hq.org) estimated a total cost range of $42,550 to $51,800 per year for an administrative assistant. Your Assistforce VA will be able to deliver the same quality of administrative support services for as little as $8.00 per hour.
And, we can’t stress this enough, the biggest cost savings is from the time freed up for you to do productive, revenue-generating work. Or improve your craft. Or to finally be able to attend your daughter’s piano recitals.
9.What are the disadvantages of a VA?
If daily face-to-face encounters are required or goods and materiel are routinely handed, a VA would obviously not work. However, Assistforce has the capability to support handling and processing of non-time-sensitive documents. Please contact us to discuss.
Also, when valuable proprietary assets are to be handled, a regular employee may provide more security or, at the very least, may provide you with more direct recourse in the event of loss. On the other hand, having a regular onsite employee also poses its own security risks to your physical assets.
In practice, a properly trained and technologically-enabled VA can handle most office tasks.
10.How does it all work at the operational level?
a.Your Assistforce VA will be professionally supervised in a formal office environment with full administrative and technical support
b.Your VA will work full-time, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, during your office hours.
c.Your VA will be equipped with her own work station, her own computer, and telephone number with your desired area code dedicated for her use in conducting your business.
i.You can either
1.forward your current phone number to your VA’s phone or
2.designate your VA’s phone number as your official business phone number for your clients, vendors, contacts.
ii.You can direct incoming calls to you or to your VA. The choice is yours.
iii.You make outbound calls directly or have your VA call out in your behalf. Again, the choice is yours.
d.If you currently do not have a business email address (e.g., yourname@yourbusiness.com), we can set one up for you. Your VA will have her own email address (VA@yourbusiness.com). If you already have an email service, we will add your VA to your existing service.
e.Your VA will maintain your appointments calendar and manage your computer files using Google Apps, a robust, secure and efficient online file sharing service. Your VA will directly support your sales and billing and collections activities.
f.Each workday, your VA will call or email you to report for work and to sign off for the day.
g.Everyday your VA will learn more about how you do business and will grow into a key player in your office team.
11.Can you tell me a little more about how Google Apps works?
Our VA’s use Google Docs to collaborate with clients, use Google Calendar to coordinate scheduling and Google Mail to communicate without downtime. Google Mail has one of the best filtering and spam control programs in the planet.
12.What if I prefer to use my own contacts and calendar set-up, e.g. Palm
Our system is designed to accommodate and work most efficiently with the above-mentioned online tools. However, we will work with you to accommodate what you currently have. We can install remote control software to enable us to work directly with your office computer in a safe, fully secure environment.
13.What will all this cost?
Besides a basic $750 month-to-month rate, we offer discounted rates for contract period of 3 months. There is a $200 one-time set-up fee for first-time accounts to establish all necessary functionalities, including setting up one US telephone number with your desired area code, workstation and PC setup with testing to ensure compatibility with your system. In addition we provide free of charge a secure permission based remote access to your PC for IT issues on an as need basis.
Depending on staff availability, we may be able to provide a FREE ONE WEEK, no risk trial period. Please contact us to discuss.
14.What if my requirements grow beyond basic administrative tasks?
Your Assistforce VA will grow with you and, within reason, undertake some advanced tasks. For instance, if you train her in doing simple periodic reports and bookkeeping for your office, we will accommodate these within the basic scope of service.
Your Assistforce VA works in a formal business environment and is supported by and works alongside professionals in other disciplines. More specialized tasks such as accounting, IT support, market research are available at Assistforce at very reasonable rates on a retainer or project basis. Please contact us for details.
15.Can I replace my VA within the contract term?
Assistforce VAs are all equally competent, loyal and hard-working, so we can almost guarantee that you will not want to replace your Assistforce VA. However, if you do decide to replace your VA, we will certainly accommodate you.
Of course, an Assistforce VA may also decide to move on to other things. We will replace the VA without any service disruption.
16.What about customer support?
Assistforce is a US company based in California. Customer service issues are handled in San Francisco at (415) 593-5523.
Assistforce
233 Sansome St. Ste 928
San Francisco CA 94104
888.518.7579 | 415.593.5523