What Do Virtual Assistants Do?

If you’re a small business owner and you’re considering outsourcing your admin to a virtual assistant, you might have some questions. If you’re wondering what virtual assistants do, then keep reading. I hope I can answer your questions and help you take the next step to working with me as your virtual assistant.

What Can a Virtual Assistant Do for My Small Business?

Whether you need someone to look after your email, chase up outstanding payments or create social media content, there are a variety of tasks a virtual assistant can do.

Traditional Admin

Email Management

I know there are plenty of people out there who find one of the most distracting and time-consuming jobs of the day is checking emails. The dread of opening the inbox and seeing the number of new and existing emails can be overwhelming. Imagine having someone who could do this for you.

I flag urgent emails for your attention, schedule and book appointments and meetings, delegate emails, and unsubscribe you from newsletters you no longer read. If you asked a VA to do this one task for you, imagine how much extra time it’s going to give you every day, every week. I wrote a blog post about how much time working with a VA would save small business owners; you can read it here: https://sarahswinburnva.co.uk/what-uk-small-business-owners-want-from-a-virtual-assistant/

Diary Management

Diary Management can tie in nicely with email management, too, if you’re someone who has to attend meetings regularly or visit potential clients on site. Consider travel time, preparation time, and schmoozing. These are things not everyone takes into account when they’re at offsite meetings.   

Transcription

Lots of companies and small business owners are now relying on AI for transcription. From experience, I’ve read pieces of text transcribed by AI and have to read it two or three times to make head or tail of it. It doesn’t always pick up words, or it misses parts of a sentence. You can simply download your voice notes or transcription as an MP4 file and send it to your virtual assistant. This process does not create any extra work for you. Instead, it gives your virtual assistant a better chance of understanding your spoken words and producing an accurate transcription.

Proofreading

Another traditional administrative task is proofreading. Yes, you can use AI, but I believe a pair of human eyes will notice and pick up more errors. It’s not just reading text and finding mistakes; there’s grammar, formatting and context to check: does the text flow, and does it make sense?

Invoicing

Fortunately, creating and issuing invoices to clients is a lot quicker and easier with systems such as Xero and FreeAgent. You send your invoices to your clients by email, all linked to your bank and accounting system, but how reliable are your clients at paying?  Some are going to be really good, top of the class for paying your invoice on time. Others may not be so quick, and you need to chase up. Of course, you can set up a reminder on your system to send a follow up, but does this method always work?

Picking up the phone and calling that late paying customer is the better way. A virtual assistant will have a process to chase up outstanding and late payments, and they’ll usually do it by telephone if there is still no response from the customer. The personal touch can be the best option when you’re chasing outstanding payments.

Web Based Admin

Most businesses will have some form of online presence, and trying to keep up to date and current can be time-consuming. With the various web based platforms and systems now available, a virtual assistant can help with a range of web based admin tasks.

Data Entry

Your business may use a large CRM (Client Relationship Management) system to store your clients’ information. You may think it’s not very important to keep it up to date, but it really is, and a virtual assistant can help you maintain it.

You may not enjoy entering figures, dates, and personal data into databases, but your business still relies on accurate records. A VA can assist if you want to focus on other parts of your business.

Website Updates and Maintenance

It takes time to keep your website or landing page current, from updating content, images, and blog posts to formatting. If you’re really not keen on poking around in the background of your website and would rather someone else do it for you, this is definitely a task a VA can help with.

Social Media Management

The same goes for social media. If you’re not particularly social media savvy, your virtual assistant can schedule all your posts for the next week, two weeks, a month, etc. They can engage with your followers and maintain a consistent online presence.

Online Research

Your business will have competitors, and you want to know who they are. A virtual assistant can carry out online research and gather information about them. Perhaps you need new suppliers, a VA can research suitable suppliers for you, or you want to find out what the latest and upcoming trends and products are, and whether your business can produce them?

E-Commerce Support

If you run an online store, you need to keep your stock up to date, create attractive product listings, upload new products, process orders, and respond to customer enquiries quickly. A virtual assistant may not be able to physically process your orders, but they will be able to help you make your online store run smoothly.

In Summary

So, what do virtual assistants offer? As you can see, there are a range of administrative tasks which you can outsource to a virtual assistant. For the business owners who need admin support but don’t have the resources to employ someone full-time, or the space to have an extra person in the workspace, working with a VA is a valuable addition.

Financially, it will save you money. Hiring a self-employed virtual assistant means you only pay for the hours they’ve worked each month. No National Insurance, sick or holiday pay, pension contributions or spending money on office equipment. If you’re still not sure, read my blog post from April 2025: https://sarahswinburnva.co.uk/what-does-a-virtual-assistant-actually-do/

If you’re ready to take the step into working with a virtual assistant, let’s have a chat.