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Uassist.ME is a virtual assistant company with offices in Miami and El Salvador. The company was founded in 2009 with the idea of providing remote administrative services to clients in the US and around the world. 
Because of their location and timezone – El Salvador is only a 2 hour flight from the US and operates on Central Standard Time – Uassist.ME considers themselves “nearshoring” more than “offshoring.”
The company has earned a number of accolades in its relatively short history. In 2012, co-founders Alfredo Atanacio and Rodolfo Schildknecht were named to Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30 List, which honors “America’s Coolest Young Entrepreneurs.”
Their standard plan is $699 for a full-time shared assistant. This means you have a dedicated contact who is there during your business hours, 40 hours a week, but they also report to one or more other clients as well.
The advantage is you have a dedicated resource “on call”, without the full time salary. If you have enough work to keep your virtual assistant busy full-time, Uassist.ME offers full-time dedicated service for $1400 a month.
A smaller, 20-hour per month plan is available for $250. In this case, your shared assistant would be available all day during US East Coast business hours but would only be able to spend an hour or two on your tasks. It’s a great entry-level outsourcing plan because you still get a dedicated point of contact who’s “on call” during the day, without having to front the full or half-time salary.
Uassist.ME service is billed month-to-month, with no long-term contracts.
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Uassist.ME Review:
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I spoke with Joselin at Uassist.ME, who helped walk me through the company’s services. I found her to be professional, friendly, and energetic, with excellent English skills. She explained that her Uassist.ME co-workers are all fluent English speakers with neutral American accents because of their proximity to the US and familiarity with the culture. In fact, El Salvador uses the US Dollar as their official currency.
The company specializes in remote administrative services, but is expanding into SEO and social media marketing services, as well as telemarketing and cold calling. Uassist.ME has attracted clients in the US and Canada, and even India, the proud leader of virtual assistant outsourcing.
Uassist.ME has developed an expertise in real estate services and claims a number of brokers and agents as clients. Beyond that, their flexible and custom solutions allow customers to ramp up teams of multiple VAs quickly if needed.
If you have worked with Uassist.ME, please share your experience using the comment form and star-ratings below.
We’ve been with Uassist.ME for a couple years, and can’t imagine life without them. It’s funny, we did a lot of research on virtual assistant companies, but ended up going with this small and relatively unknown one. And even as they’ve grown over the past couple years, they managed to maintain a small-company feel and great service.
I like how they are close to the US, and have a long list of bilingual, qualified virtual assistants. During our time with Uassist.ME we have worked with some phenomenal individuals (thank you Maria!) who learned very quickly and were always reliable at completing tasks.
Our assistants have been pleasant to work with, and the company has been very accommodating, working hard to make our needs a priority. We highly recommend Uassist.ME!
I have worked with Uassist.ME since 2009. They have done a tremendous job. The best thing about this company is their flexibility to adjust to our company’s specific needs. They are always willing and committed to getting the job done right.
We would recommend this company to anyone (except our comeptitors
)
I started using Uassist.ME in 2010 after much research. They’re boutique style of business appealed to me. My VA – Jackie – is an absolute star and I genuinely cannot imagine my business without her. The learning curve for her was steep but in no time she seamlessly took over many of my admin roles. This has freed me up to focus on growing the business. I also have more time for family. This sounds cliche but i am truly grateful for what they have done. Keep up the good work!
We’ve used Uassist.ME for quite a while and couldn’t be happier. I’ve used other VA services based in other countries and had nothing but frustration. Uassist.ME was the answer to our prayers. Prompt service and high communication. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this company to our friends and family.
I wasted money on multiple virtual assistant services — Indian, American, etc. — before finding UAssist.me. I was fast dependent on my dedicated assistant: besides being bilingual, smart and professional, she quickly understood, without explicit instructions, how I preferred to communicate and have things done. And when she went on vacation, had no one told me I may not have noticed, as she carefully trained her replacement to complete recurring weekly tasks. UAssist.me will make your life better, and is one of the best deals on the internet.
It was easy. I wrote up a JD for the assistant I needed. Got to interview 3 or 4 candidates. Selected the most suitable and trained her for about a month. After that, the assistant was on her own. Receiving my tasks, giving me a daily progress report, learning my ins and outs, and likes and dislikes. It has been now two years and my assistant has grown from personal assistant to project coordinator for personal and work related matters. I currently work as Vice President for VIACOM International. From basic administrative needs such as keeping my agenda and travel arrangements, to coordinating my philanthropic endeavors such as: art exhibits, printings books, organizing my expense reports, social media management, and many other mid level management tasks/projects. Like anything, the more you put into it, the better your return.
After working with independent assistants for some time across various small projects, UAssist has been great for me in several roles, a testament to their flexibility. Whether helping out on personal matters, tending to regularly scheduled tasks that sometimes escape my fulltime staff or on independent projects I have really appreciated the dedication and communication. Not every task was handled perfectly, but with clear communication on both ends I’m sure there is no better value out there. Highly recommend.
I have worked with other independent virtual assistants in the past, and this company provides a high level of service and reliability compared to them.
After a period of training, I feel like my assistant understands my brand and is able to make appropriate decisions based on my values. I own a small business that manufactures an item and then sells via the web. My assistant handles a variety of small tasks each day for me, from answering the phone, to email communications to maintaining our inventory spread sheets and reordering things when they get below our reorder points.
This company is excellent with their communication. In addition, when my assistant is out, they have others whom she has trained on her daily and weekly tasks ready to take over. Before I started working with Uassist.me, if my assistant was out, those tasks would fall back to me. Because Uassist.me is consistent and responsive, it is a weight off of my shoulders as a business owner because I can trust the tasks to get done.
My assistant, Virginia, is the light of my days!!
I have been working with Virginia and Uassist.ME for almost a year now and my assistant has become key to my business and personal life. I sincerely think that I’m getting much more than I’m paying for.
Her attitude is the BEST and her work is sincerely outstanding. Whenever she has been out on vacation, I have barely noticed any difference anyway – aside from the fact of the upbeat personality, but her back-ups have almost equally delightful.
I’m very impressed with this service and would highly recommend it.
I do not know who the individuals here are working with. We have used Uassist.me for about 3 years. The service at best has been a 5/10. we use them because they are cheap, however in the long run it’s turned out to be very expensive. The current VA is probably 8 years old, and even some 8 year olds would do better. Many mistakes on projects and nothing ever accurate. They do answer the phone sometimes, mostly it’s a bad line with the VOIP lines.
Recently it’s unacceptable, management does not care about the customers experience and it’s at the point where they do not even apologize for the bad service.
I’ve used UassistME for the past year and so far I’m loving it… (before uassist I used asksunday and a couple of freelancers from Elance)
Pros:
- Perfect English
- Response Time
- Love the fact that i can contact my assistant via BBM
- I got to interview the assistant before and was offered to change her if I was not satisfied (which did not happen =) )
Cons:
- More expensive than the average company
Some of the tasks Uassist.ME is handling for me are answering emails from my clients, working with our fullfilment center, personal tasks (travel mostly), and handling some social media for us.
Regarding my experince with asksunday… I think most of my frustration was that they did not understand my business and found everything to be complicated. I had to explain several times each task and they still didn’t get it… in the end I did not like how I had to pay for their inexperience (because they bill by the hour).
I then hired a freelancer with Elance but I didn’t like it either, she had this as a side job and I felt my company was not her priority.
My suggestion would be to invest time in your assistant to get the most out of it…
@Paula
Thank you for your feedback. At Uassist.ME, we sincerely appreciate the feedback we get in order to constantly improve.
We apologize about your experience, we realize that it is not always possible to attain a successful business relation with each and every one of our clients, many factors can come in between, including communication issues. That being said, we do care about our client experience and offer them numerous options (including changing assistants) to experience the true quality of our services and our commitment to being one of the best outsourcing companies in the market.
Up to date we’ve had a 97% customer satisfaction rate so we are truly sorry you did not have the pleasent experience that most ouf our clients have had.
Please do not hesitate in contacting me for any further comments.
Best,
Jackie Vicente
Customer Relations Manager
I started working with VA companies after I read Tim Ferris’ book (4HWW) and I love the concept. I own a Head Hunting Firm based in Miami and with operations in Latin America. I have used Uassist since 2010 and my experience has been great!
At first I was a bit hesitant to work virtually and delegate tasks (and share info) to someone that I’d never met before… But after that, slowly, I started giving my assistant information about my business and it has been great ever since! I like that Uassitme is interested in long term relationships with their clients.
My assistant is super dedicated! She even works afterhours when necessary and I feel a personal bond with her. I feel she is more like a partner than an assistant.
Highly Recommended!
I wasn’t keen in believing in virtual assistance, but with my budget I could not afford to pay for a full time physical assistant. Browsing the web I got to uassistme. During the morning I had the opportunity to handpick my assistant by interviewing and testing their work and the next day I was already training her. This was my very first good impression!
Each day I receive a summary of what she did. She has excellent MS Office skills, she’s bilingual in English and Spanish and takes initiative sometimes without explicit instruction. She also has a supervisor and a trained backup. The uassistme concept and people were definitely the best I found.
When our business started to ramp up, we needed to find a quick, affordable solution to help with our administrative tasks for our web businesses. Uassist.me met all of our criteria and I appreciated how we could interview each candidate and really select the exact administrative assistant that was right for our business needs. We love how we can come into the office and already have our to-do list being worked on or completed. We were able to focus on building the business and leave the daily time-consuming, administrative tasks to our dedicated assistant to manage and effectively maintain. We also really like having Uassist.me resources as really part of our team, yet not burdening us with the costly payroll and human resource overhead costs like actual employees in our offices. We would recommend Uassist.me to anyone wanting and needing help that they can rely on for quality, effective work without headaches:)
Thank you Uassist.me!
Just a quick message to express my gratitude and appreciation for Raquel Mancia. Raquel is very professional and personable and I enjoy working with her. She is very responsive to my requests and is not afraid to ask questions to clarify what is requested.
Thank you to U Assist Me for providing a valuable service and in terms that meet my needs.
I am very pleased with the performance of our virtual assistant provided by Uassist.me. Our assistant was a quick learner, was able to accurately follow directions, and had a good eye for detail — really important for Quickbooks and travel arrangements.
Daily reports on tasks accomplished, and projects in process were a great way to stay on top of things and ensure that our VA was productive and on task w/o our having to constantly check her work.
We’ve been with them almost 2 years. I’d recommend UAM to anyone looking for a VA, and especially for those who need a VA that has the ability to pay for products and services with a client credit-card (like booking flights and hotels).
I found a great virtual assistant through UAssist.me, but after nearly two months, I am cancelling the service.
Why? It’s simple. In my first month, I tried to offload research that I normally do myself (although my products are technical, the searches were typical Google searches, such as updating my Christmas card address list).
Things that had taken 2-3 hours with assistants on Odesk.com were literally taking 4-7 days to complete with UAssist.me. This was a problem for me, so after my first month I was going to quit, but I decided to try a 40 hour plan instead of 80 and just do the research myself and let the remote assistant answer calls and emails.
I tried to send all of the phone calls that would typically go to our answering service, but more often than not, the calls went to the assistant’s voicemail. When I asked for a solution, they did have somebody else pick up the calls, but it was a source of frustration because of simple things like leaving out order numbers. I stopped sending calls and emails to my assistant until my service expires on April 4 and I’m back to my answering service and answering calls myself.
However, I don’t fault my assistant, who was great, and friendly, and I really had the sense that she was doing her best. For example, in the first two weeks she had a faulty headset and it was very difficult for me to hear her on the phone so I asked them to change it. Management kept saying it was fine until they finally did change it and the problem was solved.
The one problem I did have with my assistant was that I use Google Docs and prefer for work to remain in google docs, but at the end of the day, I was always sent an export from google docs with the day’s work, which didn’t sync with my other partners. I did communicate this concern a few times, but perhaps I wasn’t adamant enough. In any case, after the first month, I stopped sending research projects so this wasn’t an issue.
I have a sneaky suspicion that management at Uassist.me over-packs the schedules of their assistants. They tell you that each assistant serves two order more clients, but you get a sense that it’s definitely more than 2.
I believe that the star categories on this site leave out important metrics such as “efficiency,” which could perhaps be lumped in with quality of work, but I don’t believe that the two are analogous. The work was always completed at a high quality, it just took entirely too long to complete.
Don’t get me wrong, in some areas Uassist.me really excelled and just because it was the wrong fit for me doesn’t mean it might not be great for you. For instance, I had a German customer, and they had a German-speaking rep handle the call. The assistants definitely think on their toes, it’s just a shame that the hours that you pay for seem to not entirely be based on the hours available to us, and the official review on this site seems to also indicate that they think less in terms of hours and more in terms of tasks completed. I just think that their metrics are way off. I’d happily pay more for a service that provides an accurate number of hours.
Jason,
Thanks for your honest feedback.
We pride ourselves on not tracking hours as most VA companies, but progress and I am sorry you didnt experience this.
We will take all of your feedback into consideration as our goal is to improve continuously.
Thanks for the response. Once again, everybody at Uassist.me was professional throughout.
Nevertheless, while you say that you pride yourselves on not tracking hours, you *are* purportedly charging customers based on the number of hours used.
Since you don’t track hours, should everybody select the cheapest $250/20-hour plan? That’s what I felt like I was getting for $699. Perhaps if I paid for the $250 plan, I’d feel better about the value of the service.
I’ve been working with Uassist.ME since the very beginning of my journey in the e-Commerce world. They created my logo, my website and worked on social media media strategies for me. Nowadays, they take care of my customer service and help me find alliances with other businesses around the world that would like to carry my brand. I’ve worked with 5 different people in different areas and they have truly been nothing but professional and understanding of my concerns. Overall, very good experience.
I had a couple of experiences with assistants from different companies prior finding Uassist.me and the outcome was certainly different… Even though I always try to allocate as much time as I can, some people just wouldn’t understand my vision, unlike Patricia, from Uassist.me. She has been nothing but golden for me.
Granted, at the beginning, I had to take a little bit of time (which I was already tired of doing – and a bit reluctant), but she has helped me millions since then. She took ownership of everything that I delegated her and continues to do so, at the time being, she’s my point of contact for all the rest of virtual staff I have in my business, she’s slowly moved on to a shared resource to a full-time resource, at the beginning they worked from 2-4 hours per day, depending on what I needed and as I long as I gave clear guidelines everything came through like golden. Anyway, I think allocating a bit of time went a long way with them – and when she has been out sick or on vacation, her back-up, Karen, does a wonderful job as well.