How to Manage a Remote Team of Virtual Executive Assistants

By Mark Salunga | Updated: 24 Mar, 2017

There are many different ways to manage a team of virtual executive assistants.

Having been in the business industry for nearly 10 years, we’ve been able to collate best practices through internal trial and error. We’ve also incorporated aspects of the different companies we service in order to better position ourselves and our clients for success.

Below are several key features that are core to effectively managing a large global team of virtual executive assistants.


Communication

The biggest obstacle of using a virtual executive assistant is the same thing that makes it interesting: remote collaboration.

Being remotely distributed makes communication in every direction very important. We overcome that obstacle by over-communicating. What does this mean? Well, in terms of our virtual executive assistants, they over-communicate their progress to clients regarding every task they are charged with initiating and completing. They acknowledge when a task is received, set expectations, and send a daily report at the end of every business day.

Effective communication with clients works best, of course, when it goes both ways.

But since our clients are particularly busy, we’ve created ways for them to easily provide feedback that they might not otherwise have time to provide. We are able to inspire and motivate our team with the positive feedback we get, and help coach our team around the constructive criticism we receive.

Managed Service

To truly amplify our clients, we provide a managed service.

As a managed service, we greatly diminish the client’s need to provide initial training, orientation, and other activities that may otherwise encroach on their time were they to hire and directly manage their own assistant.

We always work to find valuable repeatable processes that we can drive and optimize on a client’s behalf. When the virtual executive assistant struggles or the client experiences a shortcoming from our service, a team of Prialto managers works on behalf of the client to coach the virtual administrative assistant and raise the service level.

Perfect Fit

With the wide range of tasks given to a virtual administrative assistant at any given time, it is almost impossible to have every executive assistant trained on every single type of task they will be asked to perform.

Yet, clients can rest assured that their tasks will be undertaken with the utmost professionalism and expertise since we are a managed service that pools internal resources to achieve the best results on their behalf.

We also mitigate any experience issues during the recruitment stage when we make every possible effort to find the right fit for our company’s current and future clients.

Most onlookers would think that a person who has great communication skills is the most ideal virtual personal assistant. But, the number one trait we look for is someone eager to learn and proactive in nature

Eagerness to learn is not something we can teach or train for, and neither is a proactive mindset. Those qualities must be inherent to the otherwise qualified candidate, which makes it possible for us to teach our team to be resourceful both individually and as a team.

No task is impossible for any of our virtual executive assistants to take on if they are resourceful and have a can-do attitude.

Culture

Although it may seem to our clients like they have only one person working on their tasks, this is almost never the case. In reality, there is a whole team working for each client.

We make sure that the broader company culture as well as the culture within each of our global offices is one that encourages employees to consistently learn new ways to accomplish tasks, and to share that learning with others on their team and in the office-at-large.

A great example would be if one virtual administrative assistant sets up a lunch meeting at a restaurant for their client, and their client expresses pleasure with the food and service of that restaurant. That same virtual administrative assistant can share their client’s experience and feedback with other virtual assistants company-wide so they can confidently recommend that particular restaurant to their client. 

Our virtual assistants spend time on a consistent basis teaching their back-ups the various processes and preferences for each of their clients so that those clients never experience inconsistencies in service.


Conclusion

When you need admin support due to a loss of productivity that is costing your business dearly, hire a virtual assistant from a managed service provider who can overcome many obstacles associated with remote collaboration on your behalf.

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