Outsource Tasks and Save a Vast Amount of Time
GetFriday is an outsourcing company based in India. They provide virtual assistants for busy individuals and businesses who simply do not have the time to complete all their daily tasks. Having a virtual assistant enables a company to free up a vast amount of time and even work less hours if desired. It can create a great work-life balance, especially for a small business that is gradually growing, as repetitive, routine, and monotonous tasks can be delegated to the virtual assistant. This also allows employees to focus on the core tasks of the company and not become consumed by routine daily tasks such as general admin work.
The aim of GetFriday is to ease work pressures, free up time, and help your business flourish. Their virtual assistants are trained in a diverse range of areas meaning they can cater to many different work requirements. This means a wide range of tasks can be assigned to a virtual assistant with the confidence that high-quality work will be produced.
Selecting Tasks for a Virtual Assistant
This is an important issue to think about before employing a virtual assistant. You should carefully evaluate your work tasks and decide which ones can be outsourced. It is advised to keep your core tasks in-house and then assess non-core tasks. List repetitive tasks, tasks you/employees are not skilled at, tasks you/employees don’t like doing, and tasks that would cost too much in-house.
Once you have identified these tasks you can decide which ones to delegate to your virtual assistant. You could start by assigning a couple of tasks and monitor the progress for the first month. Then you can add more if required due to the flexibility of GetFriday.
The Process
To get started with your virtual assistant you need to sign up to GetFriday and then choose a pricing plan. Your membership will then be authorized and a ‘Friday Guide’ will call to find you an assistant. We like that this whole process only takes a few days to complete, meaning you can start working with your virtual assistant very quickly. A phone call from a staff member is also great customer service.
Once this process is complete you can send tasks to your virtual assistant via online chat, email, phone, or fax. This means you can choose the form of contact that suits you. Your assistant will then start on the work and send it back to you once completed. If you are unhappy with your assistant for any reason, you can request a change of assistant.
In terms of pricing, GetFriday have a variety of plans to suit everyone’s needs. Basic plans range from $65 to $200 per month and plus plans start at $510 a month. There is also a pay as you go option available. This large choice is brilliant as you can choose an option to perfectly cater to your requirements. The plus plans are beneficial as you can roll over any unused hours into the next month and acquire lower additional hour rates. One problem with the basic plans is you cannot roll over any unused hours so ensure you choose the correct number of hours for your business.
The Services
GetFriday provides a range of services which include:
Personal Jobs
• Diary management
• Travel arrangements
• Email organisation
• Admin tasks
Business Tasks
• Bookkeeping
• Data Collection
• Research Duties
• Admin work
• Sales and Marketing
• Customer Service
Digital Marketing
• Online advertising
• SEO
• Social Media
• Reporting and analysis
• Content Creation
IT/Web Services
• Website design and development
• Content management
• Print and marketing design
As you can see, GetFriday provide a host of services meaning they are extremely flexible and can complete the services you require whether that be personal travel arrangements, website design, or bookkeeping. We think this is what makes them so impressive – their services are vast and you can select exactly what you require, safe in the knowledge that there are trained virtual assistants in each area. This is far easier than hiring several employees for a range of roles, especially if they are occasional jobs such as a website redesign.
The Advantages
We feel there are many benefits from using GetFriday. For one, they offer you a 7-day free trial so you can test the waters. This enables you to see if a virtual assistant fits in with your business needs. If you decide to sign up virtual assistants will be available 24/7 for any urgent tasks and you only pay for the hours you require with a range of pricing plans available. Communication is also a breeze with varied contact options including online chat and email which allows quick, stress-free delegation. You can opt for a mixture of services such as business and personal tasks which is a definite plus and ensures flexibility.
In addition, you will receive a regular survey which allows you to give feedback on the performance of your virtual assistant. This helps GetFriday to improve their services.
The main benefit is that it gives your business more time to focus on important core tasks and can save on the cost of hiring extra employees. It can greatly help with the functioning of your small business.
The Disadvantages
As GetFriday is based in India communication issues may occur. Whereas a problem can be easily resolved in-house due to direct communication, a problem may take longer to resolve with a virtual assistant. In addition, you will not be around to assess the quality of work which means you will receive the work once completed and may not be happy with the result.
Being based in India means there are cultural differences so an understanding of Indian culture is required and communication is key. This can take a while to get used to.
One main downfall is that there is a lot of staff fluidity which means there is no guarantee of staying with your chosen virtual assistant. Your assistant can be changed at any time and the handover is not always smooth. Training a new assistant can become time-consuming and frustrating. Having all your processes documented can help with this.
Our View
We think that GetFriday’s pros outweigh the cons, especially as you can have a free 7-day trial to test their services before signing up to a pricing plan. This means if any problems do occur you can cancel or contact a staff member about the issues experienced.
The flexibility of GetFriday is one of its top selling points. The pricing plans are varied, they have a large range of services, and you can add/reduce tasks as you please. This means you can really make the most out of your virtual assistant and gain a vast amount of free time to focus on core tasks and enhance employee productivity.
We would say it is definitely worth a try if work is hectic and time needs to be freed up for you and your employees. GetFriday can save time, money, and stress!
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