Virtual Secretary Services & Responsibilities for Better Calendar Maintenance
Time is money, and in the modern business world, executives at any level conduct calendar management using software solutions designed for your specific scheduling needs. In fact, according to research by Allied Market Research, the scheduling software market is projected to rise by 13.1% from 2018 to 2026.
However, despite the modern technology supporting the automation of various processes to streamline your operation, most software products have their limits. So, while calendar management software can help your schedule, book, reschedule or cancel appointments, you need a virtual secretary or virtual secretary services to help you with your calendar and email software to ensure your meetings are scheduled and all the requirements a ready for you.
Essentially any business that requires making appointments, such as law firms, real estate offices, medical centers, trade or service businesses, and logistics companies, require the services of a virtual secretary. This guide explains how virtual secretary services can help your business thrive.
Responsibilities of a Virtual Secretary
Managing your calendar can negatively affect your business since it consumes valuable time from your growth tasks, coupled with the limitations of calendar software. Therefore, you’ll benefit significantly from hiring the services of a virtual secretary. Better time management can help you be more productive by eliminating distractions, making you more time-focused and reducing clutter time. Below are the main responsibilities of a virtual secretary.
Online Scheduling
One of the main tasks of a virtual secretary is scheduling meetings and appointments for you. This can include finding mutually convenient times, sending out invitations, and coordinating with all parties involved. A virtual secretary with access to your online calendar, such as Google Calendar, can confirm your availability, schedule meetings, and ensure you have ample time to join the set meetings.
Appointment Setting & Reminders
Virtual secretaries can help you set appointments and send out reminders. They can assist in sending invitations to meet attendees and keep track of those who’ve confirmed and declined. With this information, you can update your CRM system with information on the attendees, meeting notes, or any other important information that arises during the meeting. They can also help reschedule appointments which helps streamline your business and ensure effective time management.
Secure Mobile Messaging & Email Management
Most businesses use mobile messaging and emails for efficient communication. As a busy executive, you may find that you don’t have enough time to stay on your phone and reply to every email or mobile message. A virtual secretary can help take this off your plate and stay on standby to reply to any incoming message or email to ensure all meetings and businesses are timely.
Other Virtual Secretary Roles Include:
- General follow-up tasks
- Make travel bookings on your behalf
- Set your appointments
- Synchronize your calendar
- Managing time zone differences
- Social media marketing
- Bookkeeping
- Market research
- Email Filtering
How a Virtual Secretary Can Help Your Business Thrive
Unlike using software, hiring a trained virtual secretary provides specific benefits that can help your business thrive.
Cost-Effective
Statistically, you can save up to 78% in operating costs when you use a virtual secretary. Besides the efficient workflow, you can also avoid hiring full-time assistants, which implies costly payroll for the results. A professional virtual secretary can often work like a full-time employee for a low price. Virtual secretaries also don’t require you to provide furniture, office space, or any other equipment. They’re all set up to work remotely with their supplies, tech, and equipment, which means direct cost savings for you. You also pay only for the needed time, eliminate the recruiting costs, find new efficiencies, and save on benefits and vacation time.
Increased Efficiency
Generally, hiring a virtual secretary can help improve efficiency in your business or organization by handling some of the key tasks that would otherwise fall to you or other staff members. Thus, they assist with repetitive or time-consuming tasks and offer professional support during peak times. They help free up your time so that you can focus on other important tasks and enables your business to get more done in less time.
In addition, virtual secretaries help organize your work better for maximum efficiency, prioritize tasks for greater efficiency and help create a system for tracking progress and goals. Likewise, they can help improve your work-life balance and reduce stress, which is great for healthy progress.
Improved Communication
According to research, approximately 86% of employees blame company failures on poor communication. The workforce would, therefore, be more prolific with effective communication in the workplace. Communication statistics reveal that most employees would be more productive and work harder if they felt appreciated by their supervisors and employers. They would also be more motivated to deliver quality work if the input mattered.
So, since most of the internal communications occur over social media or email, a virtual assistant can come in handy to help your business share important announcements, organize group discussions, and redirect emails and calls. Trained virtual secretaries also bring a personalized approach since you can find someone familiar with a specific industry. This helps streamline your communications and improves the overall business model.
Increased Scale of Operations
Starting your business from scratch can be hard to predict your needs in the next month or quarter. Renting physical offices and hiring full-time employees is a big company that may not be feasible for all companies. Alternatively, hiring a virtual secretary is a safe way to reap all the benefits without much financial strain. You can always remove or add virtual secretaries from the team as needed and scale down or up with minimal stress.
Expanded Reach
A solid online presence is mandatory for brands and companies. Most customers are now opting to make online purchases, and it’s projected that 2.4% of all global retail sales will be made digitally by 2026. It’s, therefore, important to have a consistent digital marketing strategy to capture new audiences, boost conversions, and increase your brand awareness. You can hire a virtual secretary with all the relevant digital marketing skills to help you achieve these benefits, such as email marketing, social media ads, and follow-up on the leads.
Other Virtual Secretary Benefits Include:
- Reduced assistant turnover
- Screening candidates
- Keeping priorities on track
- Improve time management
- Improve data organization
- Affordability
- Provide consistent services
- Help you focus
Final Thoughts on Using a Virtual Secretary for Better Calendar Management
A virtual secretary is a professional providing administrative services to businesses and organizations remotely. Virtual secretaries have roles that include scheduling appointments, making travel arrangements, making phone calls, managing email accounts, and more. Virtual secretaries have surged in popularity over the past decades because of the evolving nature of businesses and for a good reason.
Hiring a virtual secretary can help your business thrive in many ways, such as expanded reach, improved customer service, reduced costs, increased scale of operations, improved communication, time-saving, and improved efficiency and productivity. Click here to learn more about how a virtual secretary can help make doing business easier. If you want more information, click here to contact us and get started.