subject: Challenges Of Outsourcing To Virtual Assistants And How They Can Be Surmounted [print this page] Challenges Of Outsourcing To Virtual Assistants And How They Can Be Surmounted
Business processes which yield you more returns are surely punctuated with some tough challenges. Obviously the conquered side of these challenges is what businesses look for. Engaging virtual assistants has recently topped to be an aggressive growth oriented decision for small businesses, but to taste success the challenges brought along with it need to be tackled:
The decision to outsource
This is the first frontier to capture the moment virtual assistants or the term outsourcing comes up. Most businesses fail to take off from this dilemma. Many factors pull them and push them from and towards outsourcing. The crux here is to commercially and technically analyze the impact of outsourcing on your business and then decide.
Finding the right vendor
Good, you considered outsourcing but now, how to find the right vendor? You can list all prospective and successful vendors and decide by keeping in mind your outsourcing choices and desired benefits. Remember to go for vendors who are successful and handle similar clients like you.
The above are two pre-outsourcing challenges, let's now face the real tune and also look at how to handle them:
Monitoring and feedback challenges
You obviously have to monitor the outsourced tasks by keeping an eye on your virtual assistant, and also give them timely feedback for better performance. The virtual assistant must provide performance reports and provide you with an open feedback option for better results. You can insist on task reports and access their performance by designing specific growth metrics.
Customization flexibility
You want what you desire and not what is offered. This is a common problem with most virtual assistants. You should check for customized support for your requirements and also check with their existing clients on the flexibility of the vendor.
Maintaining common interface
Most virtual assistants have their own working style which may or may not match yours; this may lead to diverse or undesired results. Here you have to make the virtual assistant accommodate your overall business language so that end customers do not feel the difference. This may require some sort of technical and general exchanges between you and the assistant.
Need for constant communication
Virtual assistants are extensions of your business and you shall communicate with them as you do with any of your own department. This makes things easier and effective for both the parties. This mandates establishing an open channel for communication leading to better efficiency.
Random and quick change adaptability
Your business may be subjected to quick changes based on your business needs. And if you are engaged with a virtual assistant who is averse to changes then things may be tougher to negotiate. So keep a check on the virtual assistant's response to random and quick changes, of course to meet better growth objectives.
Some of these challenges are more evident than others. So go ahead and tackle them, the successful side is definitely more profitable for your business.
