The global share of the business process outsourcing market was $232.32 billion in 2020. The Grand View Research report further reveals that this number will soon be a thing of the past as the BPO market is set to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.5% over the next few years.

The verdict is in.

Businesses will continue using virtual assistant services to fuel their revenue engine. But what’s behind the trend?

Image Source: Grand View Research

In an article for Forbes, Mark Thacker, President of Sales Xceleration, traced the growth of virtual assistant services to the fundamental business need for “agility, connectivity, and cost-containment.” Business process outsourcing helps organizations to brave the ever-changing industry dynamics and focus on their core functions.

Get ready to win a competitive advantage over your rivals as this post prepares you to outsource business operations to virtual assistants. I take an in-depth look into everything you need to know about business process outsourcing and cover these topics:

• What is business process outsourcing
• Different types of business process outsourcing services
• How does BPO work
• Benefits of business process outsourcing
• Risks associated with business process outsourcing
• How to choose a BPO provider
• Latest business process outsourcing trends

By the end of this article, you will understand why hiring virtual assistants is the best way to meet the rising business demands and access global resources to stand out in the market.

Let’s begin!

It refers to the practice of hiring third-party vendors to perform secondary business tasks that may or may not require expertise in a specific niche.

Popularly known as virtual assistants in American lingo, these services providers may be independent contractors, freelancers, or large-scale enterprises like Office Beacon that tackle both front-office and back-office operations as per your needs.

Businesses of all sizes outsource their processes to cater to the growing demand and stay a step ahead of their competitors. These usually involve a combo of technical and nontechnical services related to bookkeeping, accounting, payroll, data recording, telemarketing, customer support, website management, and digital marketing.

BPOs often offer them together to help businesses run smoothly.

Many end-use industries like manufacturing, healthcare, banking, and financial services have been leveraging business process outsourcing for a long time to enhance their agility.

But what has taken this a notch up recently is the giant technological leap across areas like AI, machine learning, robotic process automation, big data analytics, and social media browsing.

That’s not the only reason, though.

The shift towards SaaS-based solutions, process automation, and cloud-based infrastructure in business functions is an equally crucial reason.

The Grand View Research report I mentioned earlier also noted the impact of the rising popularity of Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) on the market growth of BPO, foregrounding the role of multiple factors in pushing business process outsourcing mainstream.

With the basics clear, let us move on to the categories of BPO.

There are mainly three types of business process outsourcing depending on the location of the service provider. You can get the maximum out of BPO by using them in combination with each other:

• Onshore: The virtual assistants are in the same country though they may work from a different state or city for your business. For example, if you are in California, an onshore BPO would mean working with a vendor in Alabama or any other US state.
• Offshore: It is a kind of business process outsourcing where virtual assistants are in a different country than your own. If you hire a service provider from the Philippines or India, that’s an offshore BPO.
• Nearshore: It refers to a setup in which you outsource business operations to a virtual assistant in a neighboring country. A BPO in Mexico is a nearshore service provider to a business in the US.

BPOs are also grouped on the basis of the services they provide:

• Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO): It has virtual assistants catering to businesses that outsource crucial IT-related tasks that are central to their value chain and require a high level of domain expertise.
• Legal process outsourcing (LPO): It has vendors offering legal support services to businesses in different areas. While offshore LPOs do not involve activities that may need a physical presence in courts or one-on-one negotiations, onshore virtual assistants can handle agency work and services that need court appearances.
• Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO): Virtual assistants in this business process outsourcing manage a small part or the entire permanent recruitment for your business.
• Information technology-enabled services (ITES) BPO: Business process outsourcing companies in the ITES area use data network or information technology over the net to serve their clients. They have virtual assistants that analyze service desk, IT, and production support.
• Travel:This form of BPO takes over the complete operations you need to support your travel logistics. The service providers are generally trusted partners of airline and travel companies who outsource either their front-office or back-office for streamlining purposes.

Each of the above-listed BPO specializes in certain key areas that can be grouped as follows:

• Back-office administration: The operations include credit and debit card processing, transportation administration, dispatch and logistics, collection, receivables, and warehouse management.
• IT and software operations: Virtual assistants perform technical support functions such as application development and AB testing, IT helpdesk, and implementation services.
• Customer support services: It covers a breadth of customer interaction-focused functions over channels like voicemail and email for your business. This BPO also looks after appointment scheduling, telemarketing, marketing program, surveys, quality assurance, payment processing, and warranty administration, among others.
• Human resource: The virtual assistants in the HR niche help you resolve workplace challenges and offer services related to healthcare administration, hiring and recruitment, employee training, payroll, insurance processing, and retirement benefits.
• Finance and accounting: The external vendor performs functions such as accounts payable, receivables, auditing, billing services, general accounting, and auditing on your behalf.
• Knowledge services: They cover complex processes that may include data mining, data analytics, web research, and data and knowledge management. You can also expect the virtual assistants in this sector to create an information governance program and capture the voice of customer feedback.

The next section looks at how BPO works to support your business. Stay tuned!

It varies a lot depending on the vendor’s location, SoPs, and expertise. There is no one set formula (and cannot be!) that all BPO companies follow as the terms and conditions of the agreement vary according to the job and the complexity of tasks involved in the outsourcing process.

Many Americans wrongly believe tax breaks to be the top reason why companies outsource jobs and hire virtual assistants from overseas. It is true that US corporate income tax is one of the highest in the world. And businesses indeed benefit when they relocate to a place with a lower income tax since they pay the rate of their host country.

But there are no loopholes that businesses can bypass in the US law or definite tax breaks for outsourcing. Other than the benefit of lower-income tax rate, they hire BPOs to:

• Lower costs: You can cut down costs for in-house staff and operational expenses on a physical office. A lower-cost labor market like India or the Philippines allows you to partner with a global talent pool using variable-cost models like fee-for-service plans in place of fixed-cost models when working full-time with local employees.
• Enhance speed and efficiency: Niche BPOs hold a high level of expertise that helps businesses complete their tasks faster and with accuracy. You save resources and optimize your performance when working with skilled virtual assistants.

  For example, a real estate VA can easily manage complex databases that allow agents to focus on inventory issues and sales pipelines.

• Achieve flexibility: BPOs are pro at tasks that kill your productivity and efficiency. They perform tedious chores that frees up time to design the action plan for business growth and manage risks associated with releasing new services and products.
• Cement global presence: Businesses have access to a talented workforce when they outsource to BPOs with multiple delivery centers. Virtual assistants in offshore locations can serve customers in multiple languages and cut your expenses on the least used divisions.
• Strengthen core competencies: Virtual assistant services enable entrepreneurs to home in on their competitive advantage. They can focus on discovering their business differentiators and reiterate upon them to set themselves out in the market.
• Better non-core offerings: BPO companies offer first-rate services to their clients in areas that are non-core to their businesses. They regularly invest in the latest processes and tech stack that deliver remarkable breakthroughs on scale.

A BPO can get you incredible business results. But only when you onboard the right virtual assistants. Next, I bust some myths related to outsourcing and share risks that make business owners skeptical of entrusting their operations to a third-party vendor.

Not everything is merry with business process outsourcing. Contrary to what most BPO companies claim, there are risks you should consider before outsourcing your business operations. These pertain to:

• Security: Wherever information systems (IT) enter the picture, concerns around communication and privacy are bound to rise, and it is no different with outsourcing to virtual assistants.

  It gets more complicated when the vendor handling your IS is not in the same country, making data leaks and vulnerability disclosures a real threat.

• Cost of services: It can far exceed your estimate if you do not factor in the running costs, particularly in contract renegotiation and upgrades. The hidden fees around currency fluctuations, internal transitions, vendor selection, layoffs, and software and hardware upgrades can also take the cost of business process outsourcing to the roof.
• Quality: A BPO provider becomes a part of your workflow when you outsource, leading your business to face problems when the former runs into a difficult situation.

  You may have to incur extra costs and experience lower productivity due to an individual worker’s inefficiency or decline in a labor shortage, causing quality to take a backseat.

• Communication: A global talent pool in outsourcing is a two-edged sword. You unlock new opportunities to connect with more customers and cement your image but also risk losing the existing clients due to cultural and linguistic barriers.

  It can limit activities, cause delays in new processes, and curb feedback from different departments.

A large share of these issues stems from working with either freelance workers or contracting to an inexperienced enterprise. Marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork seem a pocket-friendly option for bootstrapped startups and SMB owners, but the lax rules around talent management can lead you to waste time and resources in hunting for the right fit.

Concerns around tracking productivity and communication make it a bit more tricky. How do you check that your virtual assistant is making the best use of their time and billing you rightly?

And how do you get on quick video calls with them to share updates on changes in schedule and business priority? Those are the questions you must address to avoid a risky situation with business process outsourcing.

That’s unless you partner with a top-notch BPO provider like Office Beacon. Seasoned business process outsourcing providers have solid security measures and tight-knit teams that work round the clock under the expert care of project managers to deliver the highest quality work on time consistently.

You can find the perfect fit for your business by sticking to a few best practices. Read on to learn more about them in the next section.

The search for the right BPO company involves extensive research and a careful review of many crucial details prior to settling upon an agreement. Look for a provider that has considerable experience in the industry and can match your organization’s goals.

Then follow these steps as outlined below:

1. Define needs: Carefully consider the key stakeholders and how to include them in the process from the start. After that, set out clear expectations and determine objectives, potential risks, and scope for the BPO. Based on these criteria, shortlist a few candidates.
2. Request a proposal: Get together with your business stakeholders and settle upon the essential elements you require in your BPO provider. Perform market research, figure out the service management model you want to use, and send out the request for proposal to the shortlisted companies.
3. Choose the vendor: Take your time to assess the proposals. The effort vendors put into creating them can reveal a lot about their thinking process and the quality of work you can expect. Be on the lookout for their chief business process outsourcing solutions and what quality check measures and metrics they use to measure performance.
4. Negotiate the agreement: Consult the final BPO candidate on the contract schedule. It’s standard practice to reach an agreement on the service parameters but not the latter. A rock-solid contract has both. It is a crucial step in the hiring stage and must have the buy-in from every stakeholder.
5. Hand over the work: Begin by setting up a communication channel internally as well as with the service provider so that everyone is in the loop about the delegated work and the updates. Develop a plan for the work transition after that and set it in motion.
6. Manage the relationship: Do not outsource and forget. Open communication, performance tracking and management, and feedback are the key to a healthy partnership with a BPO company. Check proper governance during the lifecycle of your contract and provide regular inputs.

Here are a few more pointers to keep in mind as you hire a BPO company:

• The right vendor will offer strategic insights into the tasks you should finish in-house and not try to push you into outsourcing your core competencies.
• Work-life balance and employee appreciation is the hallmark of a good BPO company. It leads to better communication between the team members and boosts productivity.
• A competent vendor is not only after the money but genuinely interested in seeing your business scale. They have set workflows and well-defined processes to deliver quality work and hone in on their expertise while using the client feedback to continue improving the services.

Outsourcing to freelance help is the best bet for businesses for whom hiring an established BPO company is out of the question at the moment.

As discussed before, it will definitely pose a lot of challenges, but they can be mitigated, keeping in mind some valuable lessons. Experts believe there is a lot they can do to manage the risks associated with hiring independent contractors.

The foundation of a collaborative relationship between remote staff and its clients rests on a couple of factors like definite workflows, duties, standard operating procedures, and minutiae of reporting. They need to sort them out before hiring for virtual assistant services to avoid unnecessary troubles later.

As the image below shows, they can effectively delegate tasks to a virtual assistant by outlining the following at the outset:

1. Tasks and goals
2. Work standards
3. Deadlines
4. Schedule for updates
5. Feedback opportunities

Once these are clear, there are better chances of finding a virtual assistant who shares the same values and is aligned on the key performance metrics and business priorities. They should make sure the remote worker meets the vital behavioral competencies and has incredible time management and communication skills.

As they search around for the perfect resource, the following tips will come in handy:

• Do not rely on just one virtual assistant. Keep a backup ready
• Introduce them to the preferred method of accomplishing things before assigning them duties
• Increase the workload of virtual assistants only gradually
• Divide up tasks as per their priority on the to-do list
• Be explicit with work instructions for virtual assistant services
• Set up a separate email address to track correspondence for virtual staff
• Always send constructive feedback and be polite
• Maintain dedicated cloud storage to transfer and store files
• Use the latest productivity tools for a smooth and streamlined workflow

BPO has a lot to offer to early-stage businesses and corporate powerhouses. If you are wondering where this industry is heading, hang on there!

The next section brings you the latest trends and expert opinions on the future of outsourcing for a better insight into the topic.

The global BPO market share is over $300 billion, with more than 3 million virtual assistants working for vendors in India alone. The Philippines is the second most preferred destination for hiring talent for BPO companies and has one million-strong workforce.

Europe and the US follow close behind and have millions of others in the field.

The pandemic played a huge role in the spike of business process outsourcing services during recent years. But the industry experts predict the BPO market to continue flourishing due to the radical shifts in consumer behavior and demand for multichannel communication.

The SMB owners will leverage emerging technologies like automation, cloud services, machine learning, and influence the growth of the market in the near future.

Watch out for these trends in business process outsourcing in 2022 and beyond:

The progress across technologies in cloud computing, AI, automation, and social media use will have noticeable effects on the BPO industry.

The lack of experts to manage high-end services for US companies made imparting skills to their staff a must for vendors in India and the Philippines. Business leaders as well as governments in the two countries will continue to invest in training the BPO workforce to avoid losing valuable clients to AI.

Business process outsourcing cuts down overhead expenses, saves resources, and streamlines workflows. It boosts productivity and efficiency and is pivotal to achieving ROI goals. Startups experienced this heavily during the pandemic years. Need I say more?

The entry of small businesses into the field has made it imperative for BPOs to be more transparent with their clients. Unlike the 2000s, when only big names outsourced their business operations, the current environment will push the service providers to be more open about their SoPs, tech stack, challenge areas, and pricing.

The Trump-era had raised concerns over the future of the BPO industry due to the changes in tax, trade, and visas policies. But the experts do not believe the shifting political orders in the US will have any major impact on the BPO.

The industry needs people with diverse skillsets and expertise, and that will make the market less prone to disruption due to individual country politics.

Established market players such as India and the Philippines will dominate the BPO industry in 2022. The workforce in these locations would invest in upgrading their skills over the next few years and increasingly cater to companies in the automation space.

Shedding light on the Philippines, Cision reported the IT-BPO industry in the country to grow at an annual compound rate of 11.5% until 2023.

Oversaturation in the top business process outsourcing locations is paving the way for countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Egypt, Mexico, and Colombia to enter the global BPO arena. These nations are will soon be tough competitors and emerge as the hot destinations for outsourcing in the coming years.

It is now time for expert opinion on the future of outsourcing. Check out these voices published by Smartsheet:

1. 1. Alex Genadinik, Founder and CEO at Problemio

      “Moving forward, I fear that there will be a decline of quality as the market saturates with more and more companies and freelancers that do essentially the same relatively low-quality work.

      The challenge is that if you hire high-quality companies, they typically do great work, but are costly. As a business owner, this means that you must either get to the point where you can hire costly companies on a long-term basis or allocate resources in-house.

      If done intelligently, it doesn’t have to require many resources, but at least you will have control and transparency.”
   2. Thomas Wooldridge, PR Specialist at Relamark Web Design & Marketing

      “BPO is something that will never go away. It’s like saying you want to bring back encyclopedia books or Blockbuster videos. Our world has never gone backward from technology. The internet has made it much easier to bring the whole world together.

      There will always be a need for low-skill and low-wage workers who would be difficult to hire in the West, although many countries such as India, the Philippines, or China will gladly do it on your behalf. On the other hand, the same country you used to hire the low-wage workers will eventually get smarter.

      The local economies and workers’ skills will improve to where they are demanding higher pay. So then you have to look into another third-world-type country to attract.”
   3. Derric Haynie, CEO at Vulpine Interactive

      “In the short term, I see BPO being easier to access and utilize by all companies, but I also see AI and technology eliminating many BPO jobs in the short- and long-term future.”

Let us take a few FAQs before wrapping up this post.

BPOs can handle a host of business functions related to back-office and front-office management. They are experts at non-core tasks and offer a gamut of services that fall under IT and software operations, human resource, finance and accounting, and customer support.

Business process outsourcing helps companies leverage their key competencies while strengthening their non-core offerings. It delivers world-class results that translate into a remarkable customer experience for its clients.

BPO brings down operational costs and significantly improves business agility, making it a growing business strategy.

BPO stands for business process outsourcing, while BPM is business process management. The BPOs who closely align themselves with their clients and offer the best value are BPM experts. In an article for TOI, Raman Roy, the founder of one such firm, noted “the rebranding was to actualize what has been accomplished in the work.”

No. BPO is a broad category that includes various functions, whereas a call center handles only telephone-related services like resolving customer complaints for a business. A call center is a BPO organization, but the reverse is not valid for business process outsourcing.

It ultimately depends on your business requirements. Until you are clear about the services you should outsource and how they connect to the larger picture, finding the right BPO company will be a difficult task.

Begin by outlining your needs, the job functions you want the virtual assistants to perform, and the KPIs you will use to measure their performance.

Refer to this blueprint to check the potential BPOs eligibility and choose someone who shares your values.

The practice of outsourcing non-core business operations is no longer exclusive to corporate giants. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a lot of SMB owners to lay off their in-house employees and hire virtual assistants to survive the severe economic restrictions.

But after experiencing massive benefits of outsourcing, businesses want to continue using virtual assistant services to meet their ROI targets. That spells good tidings for the BPO industry once the pandemic is over as well.

Which services will you outsource to ramp up your competitive advantage in the global market? Head to the comments section and let us know!

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed almost every industry. And the real estate market in the US was no exception. Data on real-estate platforms like Zillow and Realtor shows that page-per-property views were up by 50% year-over-year at most places. Forbes quoted George Ratiu, Senior Economist at realtor.com, on this trend:

“Real estate markets have undergone noticeable shifts since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. In the wake of the lockdowns in March, Americans discovered that existing homes were not adequate for the new work, teach, exercise, cook, and live at home reality. Based on our surveys of consumers, we learned that home shoppers are looking for more space, quieter neighborhoods, home offices, newer kitchens, and access to the outdoors.”

The need for warmer, safer, smaller, and stabler homes have led to a whole generation of Americans out on the hunt for real estate in the suburbs and smaller metro regions. Data on realtor.com makes it clear that five of America’s most lucrative real estate markets are in New England. These include Melrose, MA, Portland, ME, Hudson, NH, Worcester, and Rochester.

The great migration set off by the pandemic offers real estate agents an exciting opportunity to tap into this arena and earn handsome profits. But without virtual assistant services at your disposal, that may be a hard task. You specifically need a real estate virtual assistant to handle your back-office duties while you focus on scaling your business.

I take an in-depth view into the profile of a real estate virtual assistant to help you understand the duties they perform and why you should hire them. By the end of this post, you will have a firm grip on the following:

• What is a real estate virtual assistant
• Benefits of hiring a real estate virtual assistant
• Tasks you can outsource to a real estate virtual assistant
• Where to find the right real estate virtual assistant
• Best practices when hiring a real estate virtual assistant
• How to manage a real estate virtual assistant

You can leverage this knowledge to devise a solid strategy for your real estate business and make the most of the golden chance presented by the migration of Americans to smaller cities and second-home destinations.

Let’s begin!

A real estate virtual assistant (VA) is a dedicated resource that handles standard business operations like cold calling, lead generation, finance tracking, website development, marketing, and database management. They work remotely and lend their expertise to help you focus on the core tasks as they run the show in the background.

There are four types of real estate virtual assistants. They are:

1. Administrative real estate VAs
   Administrative virtual assistants hold expertise over office management, scheduling, data entry, phone calls, and back-office duties like expensing and bookkeeping. Anything that falls under the ambit of management of an office- and that can be overseen remotely- lies within their sphere of responsibility.
2. Sales real estate VAs
   A sales virtual assistant is a contractor that helps you build a more efficient sales process through cold outreach via phone and email to find new consumers, nurture prospective leads, and close better deals.
3. Customer support real estate VAs
   Virtual assistants in the customer service niche handle calls and emails to offer your clients an overall pleasant experience. They respond to queries, guide customers through sales processes, process requests for refunds, manage CRM, and gather feedback to strengthen the current systems at your organization.
4. Marketing real estate VAs
   Marketing virtual assistants craft and execute your marketing strategy on all fronts like search, social, and email. They create tailored content for every channel and help you bring your A1 game to the table. They work hand-in-hand with virtual sales assistants to provide best results.

Depending on budget and requirements, you can onboard them as either contractual or full-time employees and get amazing benefits that come with outsourcing. Let’s zoom in on that in the next section.

A recent research report by NanoGlobals on the growth of the virtual assistant industry during COVID-19 made three key discoveries:

• The laying off full-time US staff led to a 41% hike in the hiring of virtual assistants through offshore agencies in 2020
• US companies made up a large chunk of inbound inquiries that offshore virtual assistants received in 2020
• More than half of inbound leads for virtual assistants came from companies that worked with in-house staff before the pandemic

Economic restrictions were surely one reason for this YoY boom in the hiring of VAs. But it is only one-half of the picture. The truth is virtual assistant services entailed so many benefits for businesses that they continued the practice long after the economic effects of the lockdowns wore off.

You can expect the following benefits on hiring a real estate VA:

1. 1. Domain expertise: A real estate virtual assistant is often niche and leverages that industry know-how to help you stand out in the market. Their experience from working with a diverse set of clients and ability to quickly adapt to changing priorities makes them a valuable resource.
   2. High productivity: Real estate VAs let you have a few extra hours on your hand to take up the tasks you sidelined previously. That helps boost productivity and allows you to focus on your clients’ needs and expectations.

1. 3. Increased efficiency: Efficiency comes close on the heels of productivity. You can delegate cumbersome tasks like ordering paperwork, updating property databases, and sending follow-up emails to virtual assistants and begin managing inventory issues, sales pipelines, and open houses.
   4. Scope for scalability: Virtual assistant services remove the need to invest in the hefty compensation package of a full-time hire due to an occasional increase in the workload. Real estate VAs function as an extra pair of hands that finish projects within a given time frame and do not burn a hole in your pocket. You save big on hiring and training costs as a result.Check out this cool Twitter thread which echoes the exact feeling!

Image Source: Twitter

5. Flexibility: A real estate VA can offer round-the-clock business operations online, long after you have signed out for the day. You can outsource back-office tasks to offshore talent and provide 24-hour services without burning yourself out or exceeding overhead expenses on night differential.

Here are a few tasks a real estate virtual assistant can do for you.

Cheryl Young, Senior Economist at Zillow, noted the surge in demand for housing in the US during the pandemic and commented that homes are “selling quickly for the prices above what we were seeing” before the pre-covid period. An equally interesting insight came from Andrew Rybczynski, Managing Consultant at CoStar.

He discerned the accelerating demographic trends during the pandemic for businesses seeking expansion in areas that were low-tax and pro-growth and believed they would continue to seek “low-cost alternatives to more expensive coastal markets” after the pandemic.

This spells good tidings for real estate professionals and emphasizes the need to hone in on the opportunity. You can hire a real estate VA to handle the following tasks and start prioritizing building your client base.

1. Real estate research
   A virtual assistant can free up resources by taking on research involving:
   • Prospecting and finding property details like location, top features, and amenities
   • Analyzing market trends and pricing points for different areas
   • Examining competitors’ business strategies
   • Upcoming global real estate conferences

2. Appointment scheduling
   It is easy to lose track of appointments when you are into real estate. A virtual assistant is well-versed with tools like Google Calendar and Calendly that helps them:
   • Easily manage your monthly calendar and book meetings with prospects
   • Prioritize appointments with buyers and sellers
   • Add buffers to avoid meeting overlaps

3. Back-office administration
   A real estate VA can handle the tasks of a marketer, account manager, or project leader to oversee your office operations and cut down overhead costs for physical office space and work equipment.
   You can outsource these services to a virtual administrative assistant:
   • Bookkeeping and payroll duties like calculating hours, adding expenses, and updating salaries for in-house staff
   • Cold calling and phone answering services such as handling incoming calls and leaving voicemails
   • Building databases and managing entries related to sales, lead generation, contacts, and CRM activities
   • Performing bank-related tasks like transferring funds and paying bills
   • Sending out new property deals to customers via email
   • Creating and presenting weekly reports on sales and deliverables
   • Email management like responding to queries and cleaning the spam
   • Organizing technical support tickets and taking part in customer support
   • Sending out personalized greeting cards, invitations, and thank you notes to prospective clients as well as long-standing customers
   • Launching and looking after cloud computing accounts on storage servers
   • Converting, merging, and splitting document files
   • Creating final documents from handwritten drafts, faxes, and dictations
   • Making forms and surveys to collect customer responses and feedback
   • Proofreading property files
   • Generating graphs from spreadsheets

4. Social media marketing
   • Social media is a great channel for customer acquisition. If you don’t leverage it and rely only on email and search for leads, you leave money on the table. Social media is becoming popular with users of all ages and is set to have a whopping 4.41 billion users by 2025.
   • You may feel tempted to get on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram right away and start putting out content. The truth is, it is no use if there is no underlying strategy governing the effort. Social media, like every other content distribution channel, needs proper research and thought.

Otherwise, you waste money and risk hurting your business image. Outsource social media management to a qualified marketer and trust them to handle the following:

• Set up social media channels on platforms your target audience is on
• Sketch out detailed profiles in line with your brand and link them to the company website
• Create, edit, upload, and share property photos using channel-specific features of the platform
• Perform a social media audit to figure out what’s working and what it isn’t to adjust the strategy
• Research competitors to find the keywords they are betting on
• Optimize social media strategy for mobiles
• Discover trending real estate topics and viral hashtags to reach relevant users
• Engage with the audience by responding to their queries and feedback on DMs, comments, and mentions on stories
• Run paid campaigns and promotional activities to hook the customers
• Find exciting games and challenges for clients to take part in
• Partner with influencers to get the word out about your brand’s competitive advantage

5. Website management
   The purpose of a website is to drive business. If it does nothing to bring you quality leads and prospects, the chances are it is not built to compete in the fierce online real estate market. A mean website offers your customers the best UX with these four attributes:

1. Quick loading time
2. Easy usability
3. Seamless navigation
4. Optimized for search

It is impossible to achieve the above targets without the expertise of a real estate virtual assistant. Hire a dedicated expert to prep up your website for competition by:

• Planning, designing, and developing it
• Offering technical support through coding
• Installing, customizing, and updating plug-ins and themes
• Maintaining its functionality, security, and troubleshooting
• Embedding chat tools, payment gateways, social channels for easy sharing
• Optimizing user interface and cross-browser compatibility
• Adding alt tags and metadata to web pages
• Performing regular audits to identify any security threats
• Backing up information to prevent data loss
• Creating online forms for customer queries and feedback
• Starting affiliate marketing and launching research-backed campaigns
• Monitoring and managing affiliate links

Not sure whom to ask to take notes during meetings with clients? Or to send you that much-needed cup of coffee when running late? That is a personal real estate virtual assistant’s forte. They understand your hectic life and can run these errands:

• Jot down minutes of meetings and create detailed documents for future reference
• Transcribe voicemail, videos, and audio recordings
• Research data, fact check, and create PowerPoint presentations
• Buy office equipment online
• Book venues for meetings and parties with clients
• Hire a cleaning service for your office
• Gather documents for the tax season
• Set up an online project management system
• Brief team members on the progress of projects and deadlines
• Send thank you and gift cards to clients on special occasions
• Contact customer service for bank-related work and tech support
• Perform thorough background checks on prospective buyers
• Make customized welcome and goodbye packages for in-house staff members and clients

You can either find real estate VAs on freelance marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork or outsource your back-office duties to a BPO company. Each has its pros and cons. While online talent marketplaces can be economical, you have to dig deep for the perfect fit and find the right MarTech tools to manage and track their productive hours.

A BPO company can seem super expensive but its benefits far outweigh the challenges. Some amazing perks they offer include:

• Compliance with industry-specific regulations
• Swift complaint tracking and resolution
• Guaranteed data security
• Qualified and vetted professionals
• Fast turnaround time
• First-rate services
• Seamless coordination across teams
• Leading infrastructural assets and techn
• Round-the-clock customer services

The choice between the two options is not always easy for businesses. It is especially true for those who are either bootstrapped or on a budget. But no matter whom you pick, a real estate VA will surely prove their worth in no time. They are an absolutely indispensable asset for real estate agents who are busy clinching deals.

The next section covers the best practices of hiring virtual assistant services to help you steer clear of the common pitfalls. Stick around!

The roots of a strong business relationship rest on key factors like a clearly defined workflow, job role, and KPIs that must be determined after a careful analysis of core objectives and business goals. You need to sort them before hiring a real estate VA to avoid any mismatch in expectations later.

As the image below illustrates, an efficient delegation of business operations mainly depends on:

1. Tasks and goals for the real estate VA: Build a detailed job description for the worker to understand the scope of work. Give them a clear idea of the nature of the job and the duties it would involve.
2. Work standards to follow: The real estate virtual assistant must have a blueprint for reference and a handy resource they can check whenever in doubt about a task at hand.
3. Deadlines to hit: They must be reasonable and not taxing. A great way to find the perfect balance is by prioritizing and finishing off tasks that are at the top of your to-do list.
4. Schedule for updates: Coordinate with your virtual assistant to find a schedule that works for both of you. Which online platform to use, what would be the frequency of the updates, and how detailed are a few questions for you to consider and act upon.
5. Feedback opportunities: You should send out regular feedback to help the virtual assistant understand the areas they are acing as well as lagging in. Likewise, you must be available to take up their doubts and any troubles they might be facing with the existing workflow.

You have better chances of finding a real estate virtual assistant who shares the same values and is aligned on the core business priorities once these are clear. As you look around for that rockstar assistant, ensure they are behaviorally competent and have incredible time management skills.

A few other best practices to keep in mind as you hire and onboard your remote employee are:

• Do not rely on one real estate VA. Always have a backup ready
• Introduce them to your preferred mode of doing things before handing out duties
• Increase the workload of your virtual assistant steadily
• Assign tasks as per priority on your to-do list
• Be lucid with your work instructions for the real estate VA
• Create a separate email address for collaborating with them
• Be polite and always share constructive feedback
• Keep dedicated cloud storage to share and track files
• Use the latest productivity tools for maximum efficiency

It is one task to onboard a real estate virtual assistant, managing them for smooth business functioning totally another. It is natural to have doubts about remote staff when so much is at stake. Questions like how to communicate with them and monitor their productivity are bound to crop up.
The next section looks at the latest tech stack you can use to put these doubts to rest.

Google Suite

Image Source: Google Workspace

Google Suite or G Suite is the perfect option for agents who don’t want to spend a fortune. It is a budget-friendly platform that allows you to collaborate with your virtual assistant on Google Sheets, Google Docs, Google Slides, among a tribe of Google Drive tools. You can use G Suite for a team calendar and also create work emails.

Microsoft Office Teams

Image Source: Microsoft

Unlike G Suite, Microsoft Office Teams is not an entirely online platform. You can download apps like Excel, Powerpoint, Word to your devices and use them to edit, store, share, and manage documents in team folders. Besides these apps, it is a great channel to communicate with your virtual assistant via video calls.

Trello

It is easy to get lost when there is no system in place to track progress on tasks. Who is working on what, chasing which deadlines, and spending how much time on individual projects are daunting questions for anyone who has not worked with a remote employee. Enter Trello.

You can either fly solo or invite your virtual assistant to collaborate and update their progress.

Image Source: Trello

Trello allows you to set up a dashboard that focuses on large projects and their related tasks. Each small task is a “card” that you can assign a color tag and text and move around the board as it reaches different cycles of a project cycle.

For example, if your real estate VA is tackling a priority task related to database management, you can create a red card labeled ‘urgent’ under a ‘to-do’ category in the dashboard, assign it a deadline, and follow its progress in the Activity area.

Podio

Image Source: Podio

Podio is a two-in-one combo. It is part project tracker and part Facebook for business owners. You can use it to get a bird’s eye view of tasks you need to finish and chat with your virtual assistant while they are in progress.

Its most remarkable feature allows you to create “workspaces” for different aspects of a project. They are somewhat like Facebook pages where your remote worker can comment or share useful information.

Zoom

Image Source: Zoom

Thanks to the pandemic, the market is rife with virtual meeting tools. The likes of Microsoft Office Teams offer the option to e-meet your colleague as an additional nice-to-have feature. But if you want a more dedicated platform, you must check out Zoom.

It is an easy-to-use app and desktop platform for scheduling, launching, and recording virtual meetings. Your virtual assistant will have plenty of options to attend these meetings from a smartphone, computer, or a dial-in phone.

But not everyone is into video meetings. While it is a good idea to add a dash of personality to your communication every now and then, video chats are not always feasible for obvious reasons. You can instead use tools like Slack and WhatsApp for quick chats.

Google Drive

Image Source: Google Drive

Like all G Suite tools, Google Drive is free. It stores and organizes your data on the go, making file sharing and collaborating with your virtual assistant super easy.

Dropbox
You cannot share large files via email but can over Dropbox. It is a wonderful tool for sorting freelance work. Ask your real estate VA to upload their files into monthly folders and ping you once they do.

Confluence

An Atlassian product, you can use Confluence to create an internal blog and wiki for your remote employee. It is a team manager that organizes all your documents, notes, and plans in one easily searchable place.

Loom

Image Source: Loom

Remember what I said about adding a bit of personality to your meetings? What if there was a platform you could use for just that and without the awkwardness of a live video meeting? That’s Loom.

It allows you to record a presentation or just your voice to announce an update to your remote worker. You can generate a link to share this recording and send it to others on your team via email or instant messengers.

Let us take a few FAQs about real estate VAs before wrapping up this post.

It goes without saying real estate VAs must have a strong educational backing and solid skillset. That’s the number one prerequisite for a successful long-term collaboration.

These gems however can be hard to come by as some virtual assistants only have a diploma or partial degree from an accredited university. But that’s okay too under certain conditions. A good assistant-client match at the end of the day ultimately depends on the nature of the job and the complexity of tasks at hand.

Besides expertise and knowledge, Shelby Larson, author of Moonlighting on the Internet, believes soft skills such as integrity, reliability, and accuracy in real estate virtual assistants hold equal value, if not more, for a healthy business partnership.

Kiara Nicole, a Florida-based VA, believes that as well and turned a critical eye to her profession in this awesome on what makes a great virtual assistant. Give it a read!

Image Source: Twitter

A real estate virtual assistant should also be proactive and a go-getter above all else. They must be hands-on with the latest tech tools and show an impressive comfort level with communicating and coordinating via mainstream digital channels, along with any popular office-specific software.

It varies widely. Apart from market conditions, factors like experience, location, expertise, nature of job, frequency, and technical knowledge heavily influence virtual real estate assistant pricing. Whether the remote worker joins you as an independent contractor or part of a BPO company and on a part-time or full-time basis are equally important determiners.

The right fit ultimately depends on the specifics of your project and what you need. A skilled real estate virtual assistant may be on the higher end, but they also work faster, go niche, and turn in quality work. Though a pocket-friendly option, an independent contractor still in the middle of building a client base leaves much to be desired.

A real estate virtual assistant can perform a variety of tasks. From boring daily activities like cold calling and email follow-ups to handling complex databases and paperwork, they can be an absolute powerhouse and delight to work with. You first need to figure out your requirements, and real estate VAs can take over from there.

The countless benefits of virtual assistant services make them a must-try to hit long-term revenue goals. Real estate professionals can take a leaf from the books of early adopters of the practice and outsource their back-office operations to make the most of the pandemic-induced migration in the US. If you are convinced by now, the time is just right to hire a virtual assistant and reap benefits!