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 do 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.

Any urgent emails can be flagged for your attention, appointments and meetings can be scheduled and booked, emails can be delegated, and newsletters can be unsubscribed from (do you even read them…?). 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. Downloading your voice notes or transcription as an MP4 file can be picked up by your VA; it doesn’t create more work for you; it’s just the same. The difference is that your spoken words have a better chance of being understood and transcribed properly.

Proofreading

Another traditional administrative task is proofreading. Again, AI is used; however, I’m a believer that “a pair of human eyes” is going to notice and see more errors. It’s not just reading text and finding mistakes; there’s grammar 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

You may have a large CRM (Client Relationship Management) system where your clients’ information is kept. 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.

Inputting figures, dates, and personal data into all sorts of databases may not be the most interesting part of the job, but it still needs to be done. 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 have an online store, you’ll need to make sure your stock is up to date, your listings look great, new products are uploaded, orders are processed, and you 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. Virtual Assistants are self-employed, so all you need to do at the end of the month is pay for the hours they’ve worked. 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.