10 ways to ensure you’re using a credible VA in your business.

The Virtual Assistant industry is growing at a rapid rate as more and more businesses, small and large, realise the benefit of outsourcing.   How can you be sure that the VA you are potentially sharing the deepest insights of your business with is credible?

To save you some time, here are my 10 ways to check you are going to partner with a credible VA and not being taken for an April fool.

1. Check your potential VA has professional indemnity insurance, this covers you should an error be made that ends up costing you, whether that’s an expense or lost business.  We’re all human after all.

2. Only 50% of VAs have a Disaster recovery plan/off site data backup (source SVA survey 2018 V9) check what their plans are for business continuity and protection of your data. Be aware that the likes of Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive hold live data.  It’s great for data sharing but it shouldn’t be used as a back up facility.

3. Make sure a contract is issued between both parties. All VAs should issue their own contract, it will give full details of what you can expect, and they expect from you. It will show that their business is setup correctly and they’re taking it seriously.

4. Your potential VA must be trustworthy, honest and loyal – this might be hard to find out, but you could ask them about their current customers and see what details they reveal.  You will be trusting your virtual assistant with your business and in most cases, they also represent your brand through the communications they have with your clients and potential clients, they need to be trustworthy.

5. Scarily only 70% of VAs have confidentiality agreements and / or are registered with the ICO for data protection. (source SVA survey 2018 V9). It’s not enough for the VA to be registered with the ICO, they must be GDPR compliant too in order to protect your data and your client’s data.

6. Tagging on to the confidentiality point above, do their levels of confidentiality match your needs? I have a confidentiality clause in my contract and always ask for the potential customer’s NDA to sign as well to give piece of mind. Are they willing to sign yours?

7. Your VA needs to add value to your business, I don’t mean from a bottom-line perspective, but you need to find a VA who has a passion for their business and in helping others.  It needs to be more than just a job to them; this way they will go the extra mile and bring additional value to the services they provide you. Ask them why they are a Virtual Assistant.

8. Do they invest in their own training and ongoing development? It is important that your VA keeps up with new software, techniques and develops themselves to keep their knowledge and skills up to date to ensure they are adding value to your business.

9. Can they offer credible testimonials and reviews? Check out their social media for relevant customer feedback.

10. Ask about their accreditations and VA memberships both require certain criteria to be met which are all in your best interest.

In short, the VA industry is amazing and offers so much more than business support to customers, a lot of us will easily meet the above criteria and exceed it, but I’d advise that you do your homework and make sure that you’re going to use a credible Virtual Assistant and not somebody who thinks it’s a fast way to make money…. It isn’t but with all the above in place the VA will be a successful business owner in their own right.