What does a virtual assistant do? A plain guide for business owners

A virtual assistant is a person who does administrative work for your business remotely. The usual tasks are managing email and calendars, replying to customers, entering data, doing research and making bookings. You hand over the tasks, agree how they should be done, and the work happens without you hiring an employee.

What tasks can a virtual assistant do?

A virtual assistant can do most routine work that follows steps you can explain. If you can describe a task to another person in a few minutes, it can usually be handed over.

The most common tasks are:

• Email. Sorting the inbox, answering routine messages and flagging what needs you.
• Calendar. Booking, moving and confirming meetings, and sending reminders.
• Customer replies. Answering common questions by email or chat, using answers you approve.
• Data entry. Keeping spreadsheets, customer lists and systems accurate.
• Research. Gathering suppliers, prices, contacts or options into one clear summary.
• Bookings. Finding and booking travel, venues and appointments to your preferences.
• Simple reports. Pulling the same numbers together every week or month.

What should a virtual assistant not do?

A virtual assistant should not make decisions that need your judgement, your licence or your signature. Pricing, hiring, legal agreements, professional advice and anything that commits the business to something new should stay with you.

A good rule is this. Hand over the doing. Keep the deciding.

Which tasks should I hand over first?

Start with tasks that repeat every week, follow clear steps and carry little risk if something goes wrong. For most business owners that means the inbox, the calendar and routine customer replies.

A simple way to choose is to keep a list for one week. Each time you do something that someone else could have done with a short explanation, write it down with the time it took. At the end of the week the list shows you where to begin. Our free hours calculator does the sums for you.

How do I give a virtual assistant access safely?

Share access only to what the tasks need, and use your own tools so you stay in control. In practice that means:

• Use the sharing or delegate features built into your email and calendar instead of giving out your main password.
• Use a password manager to share logins without revealing the password itself.
• Give access to one tool at a time, as each task is handed over.
• Agree in writing what the assistant may do without asking and what always needs your approval.

You can remove access at any time. Nothing should depend on trust alone.

How many hours of help do I need?

It depends on the tasks, so begin small and adjust. Many business owners start with a block of hours for one or two tasks, see how it goes for a month, and then add more.

Do not try to hand over everything in the first week. Each task needs a short explanation the first time, and that takes a little of your attention. Handing over one task properly is better than handing over five badly.

How do I know if I need a virtual assistant?

You probably need one if any of these are true:

• You answer the same questions by email every week.
• Meetings are booked late or missed because the calendar depends on you.
• Admin fills your evenings or weekends.
• Work that only you can do keeps being pushed back by work that anyone could do.

If your days are full of tasks that need your judgement, a virtual assistant will not fix that. If they are full of tasks that only need your time, one will.

What is the difference between a virtual assistant and an AI agent?

A virtual assistant is a person. An AI agent is software. A person is better for tasks that change or need judgement. Software is better for simple tasks that happen many times a day at any hour, such as answering the same question or booking a slot.

Many businesses use both. We compare them in more detail in AI agent or virtual assistant: which does your business need?

What is the next step?

List the tasks you would hand over, then talk it through. On a free call you can describe your week and hear which tasks are worth handing over first. You can also see how the service works on the virtual assistants page.