Over our many years in business, we’ve started working with many different clients. And the one thing we hear from most of them is, ‘how does this all work?’.
If you’re only new to using a virtual assistant, it’s natural that you wouldn’t know what happens next. Sure, you’ve found a VA that you think will fit in brilliantly with your business, but what now – how do you start?
Most VAs will have a thorough on-boarding system that will help you start your outsourcing journey.
To give you some ideas of what to expect when signing up for virtual assistance, we’d love to share our on-boarding process with you.
Here’s how we on-board a new VA client
We keep our on-boarding process simple and over the years our clients have told us how straightforward they’ve found it. It all starts with our clients being able to digitally sign the engagement letter.
Here’s the process:
- The initial inquiry:
This comes through in various ways – from our website contact form, a phone call, a PM on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter or an email. We highly suggest that asking for a quick phone call is the best way as you can gauge whether we’re the right fit. It’s also the fastest way to fully determine what you need and for us to see if we’ve got the capacity to help you.
- Yes, we can help!
Once we’ve determined that we can assist you, we’d send you a copy of our ‘Services and Pricing Schedule’, together with a copy of a ‘How it Works’ document and ’60 Ways a VA can support you and your business’. Depending on what you require, we have ‘How it Works’ documents to cover transcription, outbound calls, copywriting, e-newsletters and social media support.
- An engagement letter is sent:
If you choose to engage our services, you’ll be sent an Engagement Letter based on your requirements. Support will not start without this letter in place. It avoids any misunderstandings and makes sure all parties are on a level playing field. We’ve had very few issues over the years as our engagement letter outlines our terms and conditions very clearly.
- The engagement letter is signed:
We won’t start any work until the engagement letter is returned. To make it as easy as possible for you, we prepare the letter in Word and create a PDF version. This PDF is then uploaded to Adobe Sign and sent via email to our client. They can digitally sign the document and it’s returned to us via the app.
- The clauses:
Our engagement letter has a clause that will advise you that you’ll be added to our Newsletter and client mailing lists, so you’re kept up to date with new services, office happenings and closure periods. This covers us for the spam act. By signing the engagement letter, you’re accepting this clause and giving us permission to contact you.
- We know when to follow up:
We’re not in the habit of stalking our clients, but Adobe Sign indicates when the engagement letter has been viewed. This allows us to know when we should follow up with you. We get that life is busy (probably why you need a VA in the first place) so we’ll send you a gentle reminder to see if you’ve got any further questions and to sign the document so we can get started.
- Signed, sealed, delivered:
Once we have an email notification that you’ve signed the letter, we’ll file a copy for our records. We’ll then send you a welcome email, including a link to our ‘New Client Information’ form. This form is general and the details will get entered into our CRM. It also clearly sets out our office hours, how we prefer to communicate, etc.
So, it’s as easy as that. We’re now ready to kick-start a new working relationship with our new client.
If you’re curious about starting work with a VA but you’re not sure what you could be outsourcing, we’d love for you to download a copy of our eBook, ’60 Ways a VA can support you and your business’. And if you’ve got any questions about what you can outsource to our team, please get in touch.