How a Virtual Assistant Can Save Your Company Money

Are you tired of the long, drawn-out hiring process?

How about the stress and costs that come with making a new hire?

At every small business, there comes a time when infrastructure needs expansion and hiring more team members is required to grow the company — but finding the funds can be difficult.

The time and costs of hiring a full-time employee are important to consider. Going through applications and interviews can take months — on top of that, you’ll have to go through a negotiation and training process after the person is hired. Tack on reviewing their work and paying for a full-time salary, and you’ve got a heavy load to bear if you’re a business owner or operations manager who already juggles a million other things. 

If you’re looking for ways to reduce overhead while growing your business, a virtual assistant (VA) may be a better answer for you than hiring another in-house employee. 

Here are five ways a virtual assistant can save your company money.

Save on Recruitment and Hiring Efforts

Companies spend $4,000 on average during the hiring process. Multiply that by two or three new hires per year, and you’re spending nearly $12,000 just in the recruiting and hiring process. This ballpark price includes recruitment, interviewing, background check fees, onboarding, and training.

There is A Better Answer… With a virtual assistant, you don’t have to worry about an extensive hiring process. As long as you can clearly articulate the tasks you need to be completed by a virtual assistant, you can find one to do the job. You can find virtual assistants with a simple Google search or by leveraging freelance platforms like Upwork. 

Some websites and platforms specifically focus on pairing companies with qualified virtual assistants based on their requirements, making this process even easier — the qualified candidates are served right to you. For instance, a company hiring a VA to work in a law office might search for particular qualifications and knowledge in their industry. They’ll only be presented with resumes of candidates who check the boxes they require.

While a virtual assistant won’t mitigate all of the recruitment costs and time it takes to find a valuable addition to your team, the process will certainly be shorter. 

Remove Worries That Come With a Salary

A virtual assistant can cost as little as $14,500 a year, while administrative assistants make an average of $42,891 a year.

It’s difficult to give more specific costs because there are many factors, but generally, a part-time virtual assistant or one who is paid on an hourly basis with no specialties (doing data entry or answering phone calls) costs a business about $15 per hour. If they are working part-time at 20 hours a week, the cost to the company is only around $14,500 a year — almost a fourth of what a full-time employee costs. Even at 40 hours a week, a virtual assistant costs less than $29,000 a year, which is still tens of thousands of dollars less expensive than an in-house employee.

On top of paying the salary for a new employee, certain taxes come with an additional staff member. In addition to that, you will also be responsible for paying their paid time off, sick leave, insurance, and whatever other benefits you offer at your company.

In most cases, virtual assistants only get paid for the hours they work, with no additional benefits. VAs also don’t require insurance and don’t get paid more for overtime. Virtual assistants don’t require benefits or insurance.

Increased Attention on Revenue-Driven Tasks

By hiring virtual assistants, you’ll be able to focus on more substantial internal tasks like business development and streamlining processes instead of data entry and cold-calling.

While all business tasks are important, some can easily be transferred from a business owner to a virtual assistant.

If filling orders, updating systems, or scheduling newsletters is taking up hours of your week, it’s time to consider hiring a virtual assistant for help. They will take this off your plate and let you get back to the more pressing tasks and responsibilities that can only be completed by you. 

Streamlining your process and delegating tasks will allow projects and services to be completed quicker — in turn enabling you to bring on additional client projects and discover your real capacity.

Reduced Utility and Phone Bill

It’s not rocket science — the more employees you have in the office, the higher your utility bill will be and the more equipment you will need.

If you hire more in-house staff members, you might have to upgrade or move to a bigger office to accommodate everyone; bigger offices mean higher A/C and electricity bills.

If you’re in an office where you are paying the water bill, this will be higher as well.

To accommodate more team members, you’ll also have to increase your telecom plan to add new lines for new employees.

Most of the time, virtual assistants will handle their operational costs, but this should be discussed in the interview process.

Save on Equipment Costs

When a new employee is brought on board, you will be responsible for providing all the necessary equipment so they can perform their job efficiently. 

The equipment costs accrue quickly with an in-house employee. The obvious equipment additions are a desk, computer, monitors, a phone, and a headset — but on top of that, your supply costs will go up, too. You’ll have to order more paper towels, drinking cups, snacks (if applicable), and coffee — all of which often get overlooked when hiring a new team member in-house. 

A virtual assistant works remotely and should already have their equipment, like laptops, phones, and headphones. Again, this is not always the case, so make sure to address this in the interviewing process. Some companies do offer laptops and work-related stipends for their remote employees.

Leverage a Virtual Assistant To Reduce Overhead

Leveraging a virtual assistant’s skills will help streamline your internal processes and take mundane tasks off your plate so you can focus on business growth efforts.

A virtual assistant will also reduce your hiring costs, salary stresses, utility bills, and equipment costs.

If you’re ready to start looking at virtual assistant solutions, here are the qualities to look for in a virtual assistant so you can choose the right one for your business.

2023 Buyers Guide

Get Listed

IVR

 

1.)

Premium Listing Call Center Studio Call Center Studio Call Center Studio is the world’s first call center built on Google and is one of the most secure and stable systems with some of the industry’s best reporting. It is one of the most full-featured enterprise grade systems (with the most calling features, one of the best call distribution, outbound dialing features and integrations—including IVR, AI Speech Recognition, blended inbound/outbound calling and includes Google’s new Dialogflow and Speech API. Call Center Studio is the absolute easiest to use (with a 10 minute setup), and is the price performance leader with lower equipment cost and less setup time.

2.)	Computer Data Services, LLC VIRTUAL PBX Get the benefits of an expensive, on-premise telephone system without the high price tag and annoying maintenance. - Never miss another phone call - No more busy signals - Feature rich - Answer your calls from anywhere

3.)	eGain Corporation eGain SmartIVR eGain SmartIVR is an over-the-top solution to modernize IVR systems. Businesses can offer smartphone callers an easy choice to resolve queries via digital messaging and intelligent self-service. And they can optimize the IVR experience with end-to-end analytics.

4.)

Megacall Virtual Switchboard Megacall provides a fully customised Virtual Switchboard software for all companies (including IVR service). No matter the size of your business, our services adapt to the needs of each client. Are you looking for a more effective way to communicate with your customers? Discover the advantages of using the IVR and how it can help in your communications.

5.)	MightyCall MightyCall's IVR that will increase your business’s efficiency at a fraction of the cost of a secretary. Your auto-attendant is designed to: - Greet callers - Deliver necessary information - Forward calls to the appropriate extension - Take human error out of the system

6.)

Nuxiba Technologies CenterWare Provide your customers with an effortless self-service experience. Easily create menus using predefined or custom prompts and data dips and route customers to live agents when needed. Enable your customers to make payments and access information 24/7 at their convenience. Request a quote or live demo today.

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OpsTel Services SPEED The SPEED solution solves for service level issues while cost optimizing the environment with automation. Provides an enhanced way to speed up & optimize invoking temporary agent skills configuration changes into the contact center environment. Speed allows you to schedule both future changes & temporary changes that auto-revert back to the original state when scheduled time expires. Speed features: *Automated / Scheduled Temporary Agent Skills Configuration Management *Immediate Temporary or Reoccurring Schedule Skills Configuration Changes *Easy to Use/Operations Administration Focused *Descriptive Monitoring Activity Dashboard *Detailed “End to End’ Audit Trail and Performance Monitoring

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PEC Telecom Virtual Phone Numbers (DID) and Business VoIP Phone Service Whether a customer is running a Call Center business, an IVR system to take phone orders or a voice mail service bureau, he still needs inbound lines and access numbers (DIDs). These lines and DIDs give customers the ability to call in and use the service. Traditionally, these lines and DIDs were obtained through the local telephone company (i.e. Verizon, AT&T or Time Warner) and a company could only purchase numbers with area codes in the region the system resided. With VoIP, this has changed. DID Live is an IP DID service that allows you to accept incoming calls via VoIP as an alternative to standard digital or analog lines. The service provides the same quality of sound you expect from... (read more)Whether a customer is running a Call Center business, an IVR system to take phone orders or a voice mail service bureau, he still needs inbound lines and access numbers (DIDs). These lines and DIDs give customers the ability to call in and use the service. Traditionally, these lines and DIDs were obtained through the local telephone company (i.e. Verizon, AT&T or Time Warner) and a company could only purchase numbers with area codes in the region the system resided. With VoIP, this has changed. DID Live is an IP DID service that allows you to accept incoming calls via VoIP as an alternative to standard digital or analog lines. The service provides the same quality of sound you expect from standard lines at a fraction of the price. In addition, it allows you to purchase DIDs all over the United States. A company in California can purchase access numbers in New York or Texas for the same price as access numbers in its local area. This feature gives the company the opportunity to provide local access numbers to its customers around the United States at a fraction of the cost of traditional phone lines and access numbers. Local phone companies often take weeks or months to install phone lines at a company's location; and in many cases they are unable to install more than a few lines do to physical limitations. The DID Live Virtual Number service only requires a company to have an Internet connection, therefore eliminating the limitations posed by local telephone lines. If the company has a solid Internet Connection, the DID Live service can be up and running within hours.

9.)

Pointel Voice self-service can reduce cost and improve customer satisfaction. As with every system implementation, it is not the software, but the implementation that will define the success of the project. This also holds true for self-service implementations. Pointel follows a unique and proven process to implement voice self service. This process has been fine-tuned through years of experience implementing contact center and self-service applications. Pointel can design and develop solutions that will meet and exceed our client’s voice application needs. With several years of experience in Genesys GVP(Genesys Voice Platform) implementation and integration, Pointel can provide an integrated voice... (read more)Voice self-service can reduce cost and improve customer satisfaction. As with every system implementation, it is not the software, but the implementation that will define the success of the project. This also holds true for self-service implementations. Pointel follows a unique and proven process to implement voice self service. This process has been fine-tuned through years of experience implementing contact center and self-service applications. Pointel can design and develop solutions that will meet and exceed our client’s voice application needs. With several years of experience in Genesys GVP(Genesys Voice Platform) implementation and integration, Pointel can provide an integrated voice self-service application to improve overall customer experience. Why Pointel? Extensive experience in implementing and integrating IVR and CTI/CRM applications Specialized in implementing contact center solutions using Genesys Genesys premier consulting partner Worked with Fortune 500 customers building voice self-service applications and integrating front office and back office applications including data retrieval from Mainframe-based systems Experience in building applications using VXML and custom self-service speech grammars Follows best practices in implementing voice self service applications Experience with self-service products such as Service Ware, Motive and Kanisa Developed products using Genesys GVP to provide voice self-service Reputation of 100% success in all implementations with a 100% reference-able customer base Partner with Nuance and Microsoft for developing speech applications

10.)

Teckinfo Solutions Pvt. Ltd. IVR Edge IVR Edge is a high performance, robust and scalable ivr system that works on various leading hardware such as Dialogic, Keygoe and Synway etc. It can handle the simplest of simple to the most complex of requirements to when it come to creating an IVR. Integration with any 3rd party database, be it for banking, telecom, insurance, travel, payment gateway etc can be handled with ease. Ideally suited to create Hosted IVR and virtual patching solutions with scalabilities that can range from 4 to 128 E1’s per setup with voice recording and CDR functionality. Integration with leading text to speech (TTS) and speech recognition ASR engines add to the flexibility and functionality.

 

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