50 Common Tasks You Can Outsource to a Virtual Assistant
Are you starting to feel overwhelmed with your tasks? Well, this is typically the dilemma of any small to medium-sized business owner. But in the golden age of the internet, outsourcing to a Virtual Assistant is easier than ever.
But the question remains. Which tasks can you outsource to a Virtual Assistant?
There are many types of VAs and too many tasks to delegate. So, deciding which to keep and which to outsource can be challenging. The best action plan is to hire someone with a specific role who can fulfil those tasks.
In this blog, we’ll cover 50 tasks you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant and share valuable tips on how to get started in finding the best VA from the Philippines to help you with your business success.
Administrative Tasks You Can Outsource
1. Data Entry
Data entry is probably the most monotonous and time-consuming task that gets outsourced remotely. Although essential, this task can eat up time like nothing and prevent business owners from focusing on their more innovative responsibilities.
Data entry is a common task, and many VAs specialise in it. These VAs offer affordable rates to digitise your data into spreadsheets or upload them to your CRM platforms.
2. Calendar Management
Calendar management is another common administrative task you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant. This task involves organising meetings, managing scheduling conflicts, and sending meeting invitations and reminders. They’re also responsible for organising team appointments and productivity using calendar apps like Calendly, Microsoft Outlook, and ClickUp.
3. Email Management
Most business communication happens through emails. And if you’re a growing business, it can get quite chaotic if not manually organised by a professional. Email management is a task outsourced to a Virtual Assistant to help you and your team sort out work emails, prioritise those that require urgent attention, and filter out spam and irrelevant ones.
4. Document Management
Files can get out of hand quickly if you manage multiple projects and teams and don’t have an organisational system. Document management is a task you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant. They would organise your files, create document backups, and make them accessible through your platforms.
5. CRM Management
Staying connected to customers takes focus and expertise to execute correctly. When you outsource to a Virtual Assistant with expertise in CRM management, you can manage customer inquiries, automate your CRM processes, optimise sales funnels, and even update data and website information, send emails, and manage team member tasks according to your preferences.
Customer Service Tasks You Can Outsource
6. Customer Chat Support
A common task outsourced to a Virtual Assistant is customer chat support. Many growing and multinational companies outsource to Customer Service Virtual Assistants in the Philippines to support their customers through chat support. This responsibility can be answering customer inquiries, solving technical issues, or forwarding customers to the correct departments.
7. Lead Generation
Collecting quality leads is essential to any B2B business, but it can be a tedious responsibility for a business owner who wants to focus on other pressing tasks. Lead generation is a task you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant. They can help the company make sales by generating leads from various channels like LinkedIn, outreach campaigns, social media, and ads.
8. Database Management
Nobody wants to manage databases – especially if you’re looking at hundreds of spreadsheets and thousands of data points. Luckily, you can outsource this task to a Virtual Assistant who specialises in database management and helps you ensure your data is accessible by your team members, organised according to your standards, and secured against cyber threats.
9. Inbound/Outbound Calls
Calling potential clients and answering phone calls can be quite troublesome if you want to focus on one task at a time as a business owner. If this task no longer brings joy, you can outsource it to a Virtual Assistant who specialises in advocating your products and services to prospective customers. They will also answer sales and technical inquiries about your business.
10. Complaint Resolution
Companies will always have happy and not-so-happy customers. And it’s your responsibility as a business owner to ensure you turn those frowns into smiles. If your team can no longer handle customer complaints, this is a task you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant experienced in addressing and resolving customer grievances.
Digital Marketing Tasks You Can Outsource
11. Search Engine Optimisation
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an essential digital marketing channel for any business that wants to reach potential customers through search engines. This task is a role and often requires an SEO Virtual Assistant to handle this big responsibility effectively.
SEO is a task you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant to bring organic traffic to your website by optimising your website content and ranking it high on relevant search results.
12. Online Advertising
Like SEO, advertising is another task that has a role in itself and will require full-time attention from a specialist to make the most of your advertising spend. Fortunately, this is a task you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant experienced in various ad platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and many others.
13. Email Marketing
Email remains the most popular choice for online communication, especially for businesses. If you’re using email to keep in touch with your customers, you will need engaging email campaigns to keep them updated with your latest offers, sales, and updates.
Email marketing requires full-time dedicated staff. Fortunately, email marketing is one of the digital marketing tasks you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant who can create and manage email campaigns, segment lists, monitor performance statistics, and optimise messages that will invoke customer attention.
14. Social Media Marketing
It’s now typical for businesses to have social media accounts to keep in touch with their customers on a personal level. But to do so, you’ll need a comprehensive social media strategy that speaks to your target customers. Although you can manage that yourself for a while, outsourcing this task to a Social Media Virtual Assistant will bring in bigger and better results.
They will be responsible for maintaining your social media pages, creating engaging posts, and responding to followers about your products or services.
15. Content Writing
A website is not enough to entice potential customers to become actual customers. You need engaging content that informs them about your business, why you’re a trusted provider, and how they could succeed with your products/services.
Most businesses outsource this task to a Virtual Assistant with experience in content writing and copywriting. This way, you can execute your content strategies and write marketing materials that speak to your target customers.
Finance Tasks You Can Outsource
16. Invoicing
Two things involve handling invoices: paying your bills and getting customers to pay theirs. For an overwhelmed business owner, you’d get swamped with these invoicing tasks in no time if you don’t have anyone to help you.
When you outsource your invoicing tasks to a Finance Virtual Assistant, they can pay your bills on time and send bill statements to your clients through your preferred accounting platform.
17. Bookkeeping
Organising financial transactions is an essential yet time-consuming task for any business. As a business owner, it takes too much effort to maintain your financial records and business-related transactions (even with the help of accounting software) on top of your typical administrative tasks.
So, to relieve you of this responsibility while still ensuring you’re on top of your financials, you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant with experience in bookkeeping. Most remote bookkeepers in the Philippines specialise in managing sensitive financial data and keeping your transaction information up-to-date.
18. Payroll
Payroll can be a manageable task for a business with less than five employees. But as your business grows, payroll will start weighing you down and limit your time on your other responsibilities.
You can outsource this task to a Virtual Assistant experienced in tracking employee time records and schedules, calculating payroll, handling benefits, etc.
19. Accounts Management
Maintaining business and customer accounts is an essential responsibility for any business. But it is a tedious task for a business owner with a hectic schedule to do themselves. Fortunately, it is possible to outsource this task to a Virtual Assistant expert in accounts management and financing. They will take the responsibility of maintaining financial records and updating your accounts off your shoulders.
20. Finance Reporting
The last thing a business owner wants to do at the end of the day is to work on financial reports. If looking at account statements and balance sheets brings a spine-tingling sensation, it’s probably time to outsource this task to a Virtual Assistant expert in financial management and reporting.
Design Tasks You Can Outsource
21. Website Design
Non-technical people use website builders and templates to build their websites. But sadly, that doesn’t typically work out. Many factors make a website successful that only experienced professionals can help you with.
When you outsource to a Web Design Virtual Assistant, you enjoy the benefits of having a custom-made website that entices your target audience and converts them into paying customers.
22. Web Development
If you have an eCommerce business, you’ll need a more interactive website that allows customers to browse and purchase products online. A fully functional website can be challenging for teams with minimal development experience. Many outsource their web development needs to a Virtual Assistant with coding experience.
They will be responsible for setting up the front-end and back-end codes and all the necessary plugins and assets to create a customised template where your team will input all product/service information to tie it together.
23. Video Editing
Video is good media content for businesses to publish in their digital channels to maintain relevancy with their audience. But editing those videos to make them engaging is another matter – that’s why many outsource video editing tasks to a Virtual Assistant who specialises in Adobe Premiere, iMovie, DaVinci Resolve, and many others.
Depending on your requirements, they could do basic video editing or polish marketing assets for campaigns. They could also help you establish a video storyboard template that you can use for future video content.
24. Logo Design
It might be tempting to use platforms like Canva, which has many logo templates available. But if you’re thinking long-term, you need something unique that speaks your brand voice and culture.
Logo design is typically a task outsourced to a Virtual Assistant with graphic design experience. When you hire a remote logo designer, they will create mockups you can choose from and revise according to your taste and vision.
25. Graphic Design
Graphic design has a critical role in your branding campaigns. These graphics are also typically used in your social media and website content.
To create more cohesive designs that effectively highlight your branding and aesthetics, outsourcing to a graphic design virtual assistant is a cost-effective option that doesn’t sacrifice quality.
Recruitment Tasks You Can Outsource
26. Job Posting
Posting job ads and getting the best candidates to apply takes a specialised skill. It requires experience writing enticing (yet truthful) job descriptions and targeting applicants on job posting platforms like Seek, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor. If you don’t have the time and energy to take on this responsibility on top of your other tasks, then it’s best to outsource to a Virtual Assistant who can create and post your job ads for you.
27. Interview
Once you get applicants from your job ad, check their resumes and phone screen them. Sounds easy enough. But what if you had to phone screen 20 applicants for 10 minutes each? That is 3 to 4 hours of your time spent on phone screening alone, and the physical interview is a different matter entirely.
A proactive business owner will realise that resume and phone screenings are tasks outsourced to a Virtual Assistant. It’s best to hire someone with an HR and recruitment background. That way, they will ask all the right questions and even suggest (and help implement) better processes to optimise your hiring process.
28. Background & Reference Checks
So, you got your eyes on a candidate? Before you give an offer letter, conduct background and reference checks to verify their information and professional reputation. Contacting 2 to 3 references per candidate and spending an hour doing background checks yourself is a poor use of your limited time.
It’s best to outsource to a Virtual Assistant (preferably with a recruitment and HR background) to do the grunt work for you. You only have to give them your final list of candidates, have them conduct the necessary checks from employment history and feedback to validating references, and report back their findings.
29. Onboarding
Once you’ve hired the right candidate(s) for the position(s), you’ll need to onboard them into your company, from paperwork and company orientation to team introductions and training. Although essential, this responsibility can take time for any business owner to do themselves.
For a busy business owner, it’s best to outsource the onboarding task to a Virtual Assistant and let them handle the nitty-gritty details of checking in with your team members to ensure they can start great in their respective jobs.
30. Attendance Tracking
Managing employee attendance records is not something a business owner wants to typically do – especially if they have a growing team with growing responsibilities. When setting up attendance records and tracking employee (annual, personal, parental, long-service, family, and compassionate) leaves, you’ll invest time and dedication to keep that information up-to-date. That is why it’s best to outsource this to a Virtual Assistant.
Content Writing Tasks You Can Outsource
31. Copywriting
Running digital marketing campaigns requires lots of copywriting to entice the right customers to your business. Copywriting is a specialised role in itself and requires the expertise of a professional to execute campaigns flawlessly. Outsourcing this task to a copywriting virtual assistant will make it easier for you to acquire compelling copy that you can use for your website pages, product/service descriptions, and social media pages.
32. Product & Service Descriptions
You might know your products/services best, but invoking your customers’ needs to sell to them effectively takes expertise. Writing product and service descriptions is a task you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant to highlight the right features and reach the right customers.
33. Press Release
Press releases are essential in digital marketing – especially if you’re starting to make waves in your industry. You can outsource this task to a Virtual Assistant who can effectively share your story and invoke your mission and vision through written content.
34. Blog Post Writing
Publishing engaging (and educational) blog posts is a great way to get target customers to find you organically. It’s also a great channel to establish your expertise and authority in your industry. However, writing blog posts (consistently) is a full-time role that requires SEO and copywriting experience.
Hiring a Virtual Assistant specialising in blog content writing is the best option for publishing quality blog posts consistently. They will research and write blogs in your company’s language and optimise them for SEO so your target audience can find them online.
35. Content Management
It takes time and dedication to plan content calendars. But if it’s taking too much of your time that you would rather spend on more pressing work, you can outsource this task to a Virtual Assistant who will plan, manage, and schedule your content for you to reach your target audience at the right place and time.
eCommerce Tasks You Can Outsource
36. Inventory & Product Management
If your eCommerce business is getting traction, it can be challenging to proactively monitor your inventory and manage your products accordingly with your suppliers and fulfilment centres.
Hiring an eCommerce Virtual Assistant to handle your inventory and product management allows you to focus on more business-forward responsibilities while keeping your online shop operational.
37. Product Listing
Writing and publishing product listings can be manageable if you only have a few products. But if you have 100s of products to sell online, it would be challenging for business owners with lots to do with limited time. It’s best to outsource product listing tasks to a Virtual Assistant, wherein they will ensure every product has a feature page of its own and it gets presented in the best way possible for customers and search engines alike.
38. Supplier Coordination
Maintaining a cordial relationship with suppliers is critical to eCommerce success. You must cultivate this relationship to maintain a smooth supply chain so your online store can fulfil orders when needed. Unfortunately, business owners struggle with this, considering time is already hectic.
You can outsource this task to a Virtual Assistant experienced in product procurement and supply coordination. They will work on building a good rapport with your suppliers and ensure you never run out of stocks, especially with your most in-demand products.
39. Order & Shipment Processing
Ensuring that orders and shipments get processed is a full-time responsibility, especially if you have an exponential amount of online orders. A typical business owner doesn’t have the time to do admin work and process orders and shipments simultaneously. Many outsource those tasks to a Virtual Assistant to ensure orders get fulfilled and shipped efficiently and make customers happy.
40. eCommerce Store Management
It requires a full-time commitment to manage your eCommerce store effectively and ensure your customers enjoy a smooth shopping experience on your website. When you outsource to an e-commerce Virtual Assistant, you can enjoy keeping your e-commerce platform up-to-date with the latest offers, products, and sales.
Research Tasks You Can Outsource
41. Market Research
Market research is an essential task that will help you gather data to target the right market, trends, and customers. Business owners typically outsource this task to VAs adept at using marketing analytics tools like Google Trends, SemRush, BuzzSumo, Ubersuggest, and SurveyMonkey. This task will help you get more insights (on top of what you already have) to better serve your customers with their wants and needs.
42. Competitor Analysis
Looking into competitor strategies is a great way to discover their strengths and weaknesses and use them to your advantage. Companies (especially those with overwhelmed internal teams) outsource this task to a Virtual Assistant who is an expert in assessing competitor product and marketing strategies, distribution strategies, and pricing.
43. Consumer Research
Do you know what your customers are actually like? You can outsource your consumer research tasks to a Virtual Assistant to gather insights into consumer preferences and behaviour. They will personally conduct surveys, gather consumer buying behaviour, and create strategies that will address your findings to serve customers better.
44. Product Research
Product research is another market research task you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant. They will evaluate competitor websites, reviews, and social platforms to see which product/service works best for their customers and implement strategies on how you can engineer that to your advantage.
45. Keyword Research
An essential task that ties your digital marketing campaigns together is keyword research. With keyword research, you look for relevant and competitive keywords for website optimisation to rank high on relevant search results and organically grow your online traffic.
Thousands of Virtual Assistants from the Philippines have experience in SEO to help you conduct keyword research and even optimise your content to improve your search engine ranking and organic website traffic.
Personal Tasks You Can Outsource
46. Itinerary Scheduling
Not everyone is fond of creating travel itineraries, whether it’s for a work or family trip. Virtual Assistants can also help with personal tasks like planning travel itineraries from your transportation and hotel accommodations to dining and activities. Just let them know you’re preferences, and they book everything so you can go on your trip stress-free.
47. Flight & Hotel Bookings
If you’re a business owner who frequently travels, booking flights and hotels can be a time-consuming task that most typically forget until the last minute due to your busy schedule. A General Virtual Assistant can help you book the best-priced flights and hotels and add them to your calendar accordingly so you’re off to your business dealings without worrying about all the little details.
48. Travel Expense Management
When you’re travelling, expenses can get out of hand quickly. A Virtual Assistant can help you track and organise your travel expenses by using expense management software like Zoho Expense, Expensify, and Happay. They will also manage accurate reimbursement after the trip.
49. Travel Research
Need help getting to the best attractions and experiencing the local customs? A Virtual Assistant can help you research the best places to visit, dine, shop, and activities to do so you can enjoy your trip without worrying about where and how you’re going to your next destination.
50. Travel Document Management
Organising travel documents is not everyone’s cup of tea. Many things go on in managing travel-related documents like visas, passports, travel insurance, customs declarations, health travel documents, and identification documents. You can have a Virtual Assistant organise all your required travel documents so you can enjoy your trip in peace.
Outsourcing to a Virtual Assistant is a strategic investment in your success
So here you have it. The 50 most common tasks you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant.
Outsourcing has helped small businesses keep up with their respective industries by entrusting their time-consuming (yet essential) tasks to remote Virtual Assistants. This solution has helped them reclaim time to focus on growing their business rather than getting stuck on routine responsibilities. It’s a strategic investment that will help you scale your capabilities without the overhead costs.
The tasks you outsource to a Virtual Assistant in the Philippines will be your stepping stone towards a more innovative workspace. Whether you outsource your customer service, general administration, digital marketing and design, or finance, the correct VA will be your partner for a more proactive work operation. Determine which tasks are weighing you down and preventing you from performing your best in challenges. That is the task you outsource to a Virtual Assistant.
Once you’ve figured out which tasks to outsource, you can partner with a reliable outsourcing agency like OMB that works with small businesses and helps them grow and establish efficiency with Virtual Assistants.
Contact us today, and we’ll start your journey towards a more stable workload without the hefty overhead costs of local hiring.
