You finally realize that you need help. The only problem is that you’re not sure which administrative support you want to hire.
The strategy is to ask for the assistance of a remote worker, which is today's most cost-effective staffing solution. However, there’s more than one type of virtual support to choose from: either a virtual assistant or a virtual associate.
While both of these roles almost sound alike, they actually serve different purposes for your business. They are virtual professionals who bring unique capabilities to the table.
To decide whom to delegate, here’s an article that details the virtual assistant and virtual associate differences you should know about before deciding on the best option.
A virtual assistant is a contractual professional who supports your business from a remote location. They can do a wide variety of administrative tasks, such as research, customer service and email management.
Virtual assistants are like remote personal assistants. They can help you without needing to be physically present, communicating with you online.
Here’s a list of the main responsibilities of a virtual assistant:
The most crucial role of a virtual assistant is to assist you with the grueling day-to-day administrative tasks that your business needs to efficiently operate. This includes answering phone calls, creating presentations and scheduling appointments.
A virtual assistant can clean up your inbox. They can organize your email, flag important messages and clear out junk mail. This way, you are always on top of your inbox and will never miss any crucial communications.
Your virtual assistant will make sure everything runs smoothly according to your schedule. They will coordinate everything in your calendar so you avoid double bookings and never miss important dates. Rest assured, you can always take advantage of every opportunity.
Social media can only be a great marketing avenue for your business if you know how to utilize it with the help of a VA. More than just scheduling your posts for Facebook or Instagram, they can help you brainstorm ideas and engage with your audience.
You can always rely on a virtual assistant when you need someone to make sure your customers feel valued and heard. They can answer questions and resolve issues promptly with a personal touch.
More than that, they can also follow up on clients and gather feedback that you can use to improve your service.
Basically, a virtual associate is a certain type of virtual assistant. They are trained to offer your business a more focused type of support. Unlike the typical VA, they handle a specialized set of tasks like marketing and content creation that require expertise in a particular field.
Here are a few responsibilities of a virtual associate:
Virtual associates handle more complex administrative tasks, hence the word “advance.” Some of these multifaceted office chores include planning business travels and handling correspondence.
Virtual associates who are successful in these roles are proficient at multitasking and using different digital tools.
Project management is a very time-consuming process that involves meticulous planning, deadlines, progress reports and ensuring that everything runs seamlessly.
Your virtual associate has a careful approach to managing your projects. They will coordinate with the team, organize tasks and track progress to keep everything within the standards and timeline.
Just like virtual assistants, virtual associates are vital to boosting your social media presence and ensuring your brand’s voice is heard all over the digital sphere.
However, they don’t just schedule posts, create content and interact with your followers; they also analyze your campaign’s performance, helping you adjust your strategies.
Yes, even your customer relationship can be handled by your virtual associate. They can keep you active and make your clients feel valued at every interaction by dealing with questions and concerns gracefully and promptly.
This is a truly important process toward building a loyal and strong customer base.
By taking advantage of the data-analyzing skills of a virtual associate, you can identify trends, systematically assess information and gain insights to make data-driven decisions.
Once your VA has the data analyzed, they can proceed to create a clear and concise report, allowing you to transform raw data into workable data intelligence.
VAs (virtual assistant) and VAs (virtual associate) are not the same. Their difference is very apparent in the core nature of their roles.
Nonetheless, both positions have helped plenty of business owners and entrepreneurs to be more versatile and operate cost-effectively. However, the following are the major differences between the two:
A virtual assistant handles the general administrative tasks of a business that are necessary to ensure smoother operations, like scheduling and data management.
On the other hand, virtual associates support the business in a more specialized way. They have a more focused business function like project management and data analysis.
Virtual assistants are players who support plans and strategies laid out by team leaders or managers. This is why they’re required to follow directions.
Since virtual associates tend to handle core business functions, they get to enjoy more independence in making decisions about their work that are within their expertise.
Virtual assistants help execute plans; therefore, they’re more of a supporting role that doesn’t really partake in making decisions.
A virtual associate, however, has more involvement in strategizing plans. You can see them working closely with you and the management.
In terms of impact, a virtual associate can directly contribute to the growth of your company since they handle more specialized work.
As supporting roles, virtual assistants don’t really have that same impact, although they are essential in keeping daily activities smoothly functioning.
When you’re weighing down which virtual support to hire—a virtual assistant or a virtual associate—you should think about your specific needs.
Virtual assistants are lifesavers when you need an extra pair of hands to run the daily operation.
But if you need certain expertise in accounting or web design, you’re better off with a virtual associate on your corner.
Ultimately, the choice between a virtual assistant and a virtual associate depends on the tasks you need help with.
While a virtual assistant sees the task at hand, an executive assistant sees the bigger picture. They don’t just help you out with individual tasks; they also help you prepare and eliminate issues before they become a disaster.
In a nutshell, a VA is a low-cost solution to take care of specific tasks, whereas an EA does more than just handle your schedule or inbox; they also seek ways to add more value to your business.
The term virtual assistant is also referred to as a digital assistant or an AI assistant. These names are a reflection of the nature of a VA which is to provide support and perform tasks that used to be carried out traditionally by a human assistant.
A real assistant is a traditional worker who assists with your administrative needs. This professional has soft skills essential to accommodate a broad range of business-related activities while working in a typical office setting.
Meanwhile, a virtual assistant is the so-called new breed of assistant that is increasingly dominating the virtual world. They are not employees but cost-effective contractual workers who also offer a variety of business-related tasks from the comforts of their homes.
By now, you should have an enormous number of ideas about the virtual assistant and virtual associate difference—enough, at least, to know which one is the best option. But first, you must decide based on your needs without neglecting your budget.
Try asking yourself the following questions:
These are some of the questions that can help you make the right choice.
But whether you choose to work with a virtual assistant or a virtual associate, we’re confident that we have the VA you need for your unique needs.
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