Q: Why should I hire a VA?
A: Growing a successful business takes time, commitment, and effort.
When your business is doing well, administrative responsibilities
increase as well. Tasks such as
invoicing, telephone calls, correspondence, advertising, etc., are all
critical to the continued growth of your business. If you hire an
employee, you must also pay taxes and benefits as well as provide
office space and equipment. If you complete those tasks yourself, you
are not utilizing your time effectively so you can continue growing
your business. By hiring a VA, you will have someone who has past
experience working with key executives for usually 5+ years doing the
same work that you need to have done. VAs are entrepreneurs and
therefore, are 1099s just as you, and that means you pay no taxes or
benefits nor do you need to provide office space or equipment. By
outsourcing your administrative tasks to a VA, you can return to
growing your business at the same time your administrative tasks are
completed without the significant overhead required for employees.
Q: What kinds of work do you do?
A: Typing of all kinds: academic typing; database creation and
management; editing, proofreading and formatting; e-mail management;
resume and CV maintenance; telephone
answering service; travel arrangements; word processing; calendar
management and reminder service; Excel spreadsheet creation; Internet
research; mailing services; PowerPoint presentations; invoice &
collections; event planner; conference organizer; personal assistant
services; realtor support; all secretarial services; website design and
maintenance; and the list goes on (see services).
Q: Who uses the services of a Professional Virtual Assistant?
A: Every kind of business generates critical administrative tasks that must be done.
Q: What can a VA do for me?
A: Depending on the experience of the VA you hire, a VA can do just
about everything that an in-house Executive Secretary or Administrative
Assistant can do. Challenges will
come into play if you want photocopies made. Also, keep in mind that
there will be times when the workload is too great for in-house staff
to complete as quickly as you want. The same applies for a VA.
Depending on how you want your completed work, you could receive the
work as quickly as if the VA was standing in your office!
Q: How do I know you're the most capable VA that I need?
A: We suggest an open line of communication via telephone and/or e-mail
conversations. Feel free to ask as many questions as you need to
satisfy yourself that we would be
a good match. Be detailed regarding the type work you want done. Be
specific about what your expectations are. Ask us to provide examples
of our work. Also, refer to further details on our webpage entitled:
How to Hire a VA.
Q: Do I need special technology in order to work with a VA?
A:
No. Information can be sent to your VA by courier, email or fax. This
works well for much of the routine work such as agreements and wills.
You can provide the VA with
examples of how you want your final products to look if you have
templates that you normally use, by burning the templates to a CD and
mailing the CD to the VA. If you plan on working with the VA as your
personal VA/secretary, you should consider setting up direct access to
the VA’s computer, or providing selected files, using encrypted remote
access tools such as PCAnywhere, RemotePC, GoToMyPC, or WebEx.
Dictation can be done to audio tapes, to CDs or mailed on a .wav or MP3
format.
Q: I already employ office help. Why should I consider a Virtual Assistant?
A: Does your current office help always keep up with the workflow? What
do you do when that person goes on vacation? Do you let the work pile
up and wait until that
person returns or do you do it yourself? Do you pay benefits to your
current office staff? What about taxes? Do you have staff turnover? Who
trains when you have new staff members? SOS can help with the influx of
work or cover while your clerical staff goes on vacation and because we
are independent contractors, you would pay no benefits or taxes.
Q: What are your office hours?
A: We normally work Monday to Friday. However, we will extend our
normal hours to accommodate the occasional short-term due date at no
extra charge
Q: Do I need to sign a contract or agreement?
A: Yes, for your protection as much as ours. We require three (3) forms
from all Clients prior to beginning any work assignments: Request for Quote, Client Profile, and
Service Agreement. You will only need to complete the Client Profile
once, however, with each new retainer plan or hourly service you
require, you will need to complete a new Request for Quote and Service
Agreement. These two forms detail the work you expect to have completed
and give us advance notice of the equipment and supplies we need to
have so that we can comply with your requirements. The more details we
have about the tasks you want completed, the faster we can return the
work to you.
Q: What about confidentiality?
A: Our experience is from working with executives in
many corporations where working with confidential and sensitive
materials was part of the job. Keep in mind that it is in our best
interest for you to be successful. It’s a well known fact that it’s
easier to keep current clients satisfied than it is to constantly seek
out new clientele. Therefore, you can be assured that our loyalty to
you will be equal to the other executives with whom we’ve worked. It is
mission critical to us that your work be kept completely confidential.
In fact, if you have confidential work that you need done, consider
giving those tasks to us to ensure that your staff is not aware of
tasks that are confidential and sensitive.
Q: I like the discount that you offer for your retainer Clients and I spend a lot of time doing work in the office; however, I don’t know what tasks I could delegate.
A: Ask for our Client Profile
form that lists many of the regular administrative work that is
important to the well being of most offices. Many of the tasks listed
on the form
will be those that you do. It makes good business sense to delegate
tasks so you can focus on building your business. Look at the table on
our webpage What is a VA to see how much money you can save by hiring a
Virtual Assistant.
Q: How do you charge for secretarial/clerical services?
A: Our prices are based on the Industry Production Standards (IPS). IPS
states that the average performance for someone with 2-3 years office
experience and keyboard
speed of 70 WPM (with 2-3 errors/page) with good English and grammar
skills is compensated at $35/hour. The professionals at Secretarial
& Office Solutions have many more than 2-3 years of office
experience. Additionally, we worked with upper level executives where
the pace usually moved at an extremely quick pace and therefore, we
learned many tricks that helped us keep up with the flow. We will use
our experience and tricks of the trade to benefit you and your business.
Q: How do you calculate your rates for transcription?
A: Our medical transcription is based on hospital standards of 139
lines per hour. General transcription is based on IPS standards.
Q: Is this service more expensive than paying a secretary?
A: No. Please see the table in our What is a VA that compares full
time, part time, and temps against the professionals of Secretarial
& Office Solutions. When you hire
an employee, in additional to the salary or hourly wage, you must also
pay benefits and taxes. That does not take into account office space
and equipment, heat & air conditioning and other utilities, etc.
You pay none of those items with Secretarial & Office Solutions,
thereby saving you money.
Q: How do I relay the details of the projects I want done?
A: All assignments and tasks are submitted using a Request for Quote form in which you provide the details about the task(s) you want completed. The more details you
provide to us, not only will that permit us to complete your projects
faster, but it will also minimize the necessity of expending
unnecessary time discussing revisions and corrections. Time wasted
discussing revisions and correcting misunderstandings is time we cannot
spend doing additional tasks. In fact, the longer we work with you, the
more we will learn understand your likes and dislikes so that we will
actually anticipate your needs prior to your request and you will find
that ongoing projects will be handled seamlessly; just as your in-house
executive secretary or executive administrative assistant would do.
Q: How will you deliver my work to me?
A: That depends on what your final product is: some items can be
downloaded to a CD and the CD mailed or shipped to you. Some work needs
to be bound in those cases we
would either use US Mail, DHL or UPS overnight. Some work can be zipped
and emailed to you. If we organize a meeting or conference for you, we
would email updated recapitulations to keep you informed of the
progress, number of registrants, registration fees that have been
deposited to your account, etc. If you want us to bind a syllabus for
your meeting or conference, we would have those shipped directly to
your meeting or conference. All of these options would be discussed
prior to our taking on the task to inquire what your finished product
will be and your preferred method of receiving the finished product.
Q: When will my work be ready?
A: When you present us with a task, you will complete a Request for Quote (RFQ) where you can outline the services you are seeking and provide a detailed
description. Based on your description, we will be able to give you our
best estimate of how long the job will take and how much the job will
cost. The delivery estimate will depend on the size of your job and
work that is already in progress. Work is processed on a first-come,
first-served basis unless you contract with us on a retainer basis. All
retainer Clients receive priority over one-time, hourly Clients. All
sensible deadlines are usually met, even if we need to put more people
on the task.
Occasionally Clients will have rush jobs and short turnaround needs.
Those needs are figure into the RFQ. Our goal is to have your finished
product to you to permit you time to review the work prior to needing
it. We will be in regular contact with you by email and/or telephone to
provide updates regarding our progress. If your rush job is done as an
hourly Client and we receive a rush job from a retainer Client, the
retainer Client will receive priority and we will immediately contact
you.
Q: How do I explain the task to my VA?
A: Misunderstandings, when working at a distance, can easily happen and
that makes clear communications essential. Always, follow up verbal
instructions with an
email to ensure that you are on the same wavelength. Provide examples
and templates whenever possible. Be realistic with your deadlines.
Until your VA learns your likes and dislikes and until you learn to
trust that your VA understands the way you want things done, consider
breaking tasks down into sections so that you can check one section
before your VA proceeds to the next section. As with all staff,
although there is a learning curve, the more you work together, the
less likely misunderstandings will happen.
Q: What if I find mistakes in the final copy?
A: Typos or mistakes are extremely rare for two reasons: (1) Provided
time permits, we always email a DRAFT copy to our Clients to proofread,
sign off and return. As in a
regular office, it is the Client’s responsibility for final
proofreading.
Minimal revisions will be made a no extra charge. However, if the
revisions entail significant time to revise the document, our regular
hourly (or the retainer plan rate that you chose) fee will be charged.
If you will incur additional fees due to substantial revisions, we will
always contact you to inquire how you want us to proceed prior to
beginning work. (2) We have a QC Department that checks all projects
against the RFQ before sending the finished project to our Clients. If
you did not catch a typo when you reviewed it and our QC Director did
not catch a typo, it will be corrected at no charge.
If mistakes were made due to the Client's incomplete or erroneous
instructions, the corrections will be made at the normal rate, whether
hourly or retainer. If mistakes were made due to our misunderstanding
the Client’s directions, even though the directions are correct, those
corrections will be made at no charge.
Q: What is included in your fees?
A: The price quoted in the RFQ
includes all supplies needed to complete the job, time to forward a
draft copy to you for your review and for making simple revisions and
getting
the finished project to you by your deadline. We provide a CD and one
hard color copy of your completed project.
Q: How much can I expect to pay?
A: Please see our Rates webpage.
Q: How is payment made?
A: By direct bank transfer, business check, cashiers’ check or via
PayPal. One you have been a Client for six (6) months, we will extend
net terms. If your business check is
returned for insufficient funds, a $35 fee will be charged for the
returned check and you will no longer be permitted to pay by check.
Q: What procedures do you have to protect and back-up my work?
A: Your work is saved to the hard drive of our computer and we also
make a back up CD that is kept off-site in case of natural disasters.
Q: What do you do about system security and computer viruses?
A: We have antivirus software and a firewall that updates our computers
regularly. Although we take the utmost precautions, every computer is
at risk for potential viruses
that are able to get past the firewall or antivirus software. However,
we do everything in our power to prevent viruses from being received,
sent, or saved to CD. Keep in mind, this business is our livelihood. It
is critical that we protect everyone’s computer.
Q: What software do you use?
A: We use the Microsoft Office Suite
Q: How long do you keep my files on your computer?
A: At the conclusion of your job, your project files will be copied to
CD and the copy on our CPU will be deleted. CDs will be appropriately
labeled with the Client’s name,
order number, date of completion and brief description of the job and
placed in our files. Work performed for hourly clients will be stored
for three (3) months after completion of the job. Retainer clients’
work will be stored for six (6) months. As with all technology, there
is no guarantee that the disk copy will not corrupt with time. At the
end of 3 months (hourly Clients) or 6 months (Retainer Clients), all
CDs will removed from our files and either mailed via US Mail or
destroyed by cutting them in half (depending on information provided by
Clients in the Client Profile). If a Client provides project
information on disk or hard copies, the Client is responsible for
retaining backup copies for safekeeping. As noted above, guarantee
cannot be made that a CD will not be demagnetized or corrupted during
shipment if CD is magnetically scanned at the postal office or from
being lost in the mail. SOS will not be responsible for work that does
not reach us from the Client.
Q: What if I'm dissatisfied with the finished product that you supply?
A: We guarantee our work to your total satisfaction. We will make
necessary changes and/or revisions to your project until the finished
product is to your complete
satisfaction. Be aware that if any issues arise due to miscommunication
or incorrect direction from you, although we will make the
corrections/revisions, we will charge the rate at which the remainder
of the project was competed. If the issue is that we misunderstood even
though you gave detailed, concise instructions, we will make the
corrections at our cost and will overnight the finished project to you.
Our goal is to keep all current Clients completely satisfied and we are
committed to making that happen.
