x.ai

x.ai is a tool that helps you and your team share ideal availability and schedule meetings.

About x.ai

x.ai reviewFounded in 2014, x.ai is a productivity tool powered by artificial intelligence that lets you schedule meetings effortlessly. We believe it should be easier and less time-consuming to schedule meetings, and x.ai is built to help everyone achieve that.

 

How It Works

When you connect all of your calendars with x.ai, the powerful scheduling engine can instantly review your availability and preferences to find ideal meeting times. You can share a link to these time options or tell x.ai’s Scheduling AI to send them directly to your guests.

With x.ai, you can automate the most tedious parts of schedule — things like finding compatible times to meet with large groups, sending follow-ups and reminders, as well as managing cancellations and reschedule requests.

Best of all: When you initiate a meeting with another x.ai user, the scheduling engine can review everyone’s availability and preferences to schedule the meeting instantly without any additional coordination.

X.ai Plans and Pricing

X.ai offers a Free, Forever plan, as well as Individual and Team tiers that provide premium features. Learn more: https://x.ai/pricing/

Your Turn

Have you used x.ai? Very curious to hear your experience and would love if you could drop in a review below.

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HelpSquad

HelpSquad offers shared VAs, dedicated VAs, and part-time receptionist services. On top of that, they provide 24/7 live chat support service with fully-trained live chat agents to businesses of all sizes and will actively work to increase your website conversions and generate leads.

HelpSquad is a cost-effective solution to hiring additional staff, and your customers will love having their live chats, Facebook messages, and SMS text messages answered around the clock. 

About HelpSquad

HelpSquad is a global BPO that allows companies to outsource critical customer service and business processes to highly-trained, experienced agents. The company is headed up by founder Michael Kansky and started operations in 2015. HelpSquad customer service fanatics can take on any role – customer service, call center, and back office operations. They guarantee that outsourcing customer support with HelpSquad will reduce operational costs, increase efficiency, and expand productivity. At the same time, outsourcing will free-up personnel to focus on value-added tasks. HelpSquad offers services for start-ups, small businesses, and enterprises.

How HelpSquad Works

Their headquarters are located in Hatboro, PA, but their team of VAs spread worldwide including Europe, Central America, and South Africa.

Virtual Assistants can report directly to your company for training, daily check-ins, and coaching. HelpSquad can also provide onsite supervision, QA, training, and management for engagements of five or more VAs. Either way, HelpSquad VAs will have an open, communicative relationship with you. Their Virtual Assistants and staff become a part of your team.

HelpSquad is able to offer this cost-effective service because their agents have the ability to serve several clients simultaneously. Though they are available 24/7, you only pay for the number of unique chats or customer engagements they handle.

All of their agents have been put through a rigorous training program and are experienced in using a wide range of chat software and programs. Your “squad” will take the time to understand the fundamentals of your business and serve your customers as if they are an extension of your brand. 

Onboarding: 3-Step process

  1. Identify the needs and wants of the client (you!) 
  2. Communicate the needs and wants of the client to their team so they can identify the best-suited virtual assistant candidates to fill the positions. This includes finding a candidate with relevant experience to the client industry. 
  3. Train the VA on HelpSquad’s omnichannel software platform or any bring-your-own software required. Orient the VA on the needs of the client and their expected role in the client’s business

HelpSquad Services

HelpSquad’s live Virtual Assistants will not only train to answer your customers’ most frequently asked questions, but  will also understand your business’ systems and processes. They’ll be able to reference customer’s order history, make appointments, provide technical support and troubleshooting.

Make a list of business tasks that you no longer want to do yourself and HelpSquad VAs can take over. Full- and part-time Virtual Assistants are available. HelpSquad will ensure you have the perfect candidate to fill any role. Your team can manage agent training or just leave it to HelpSquad supervisors. 

HelpSquad also offers 24/7 managed chat services. Professionally trained live chat agents stand ready to answer your customers’ questions, social media, Google Business Messages and Facebook Messenger inquiries 24/7/365.

They have a pool of multilingual, vetted and screened agents ready to join your team. Customer service skills are required for all VAs. HelpSquad Virtual Assistants are screened for grammar, spelling, and typing capabilities. Phone assistants will have the clarity of speech you expect. Only the highest performance agents qualify.

HelpSquad Dedicated Virtual Assistant Services

  1. Sales and Technical Support
  2. Customer Service
  3. Scheduling/Calendar Management
  4. Travel Assistance
  5. Research
  6. Quality Assurance
  7. Transcription/Translation Services
  8. Social Media Interaction
  9. Email/Text Messaging Management
  10. Other Personal Assistant Functions

HelpSquad Virtual Receptionist Services

  1. Answer incoming calls
  2. Greet callers
  3. Take messages
  4. Transfer calls
  5. Provide basic customer service
  6. Schedule appointments
  7. Provide basic information about products and services
  8. Collect payments
  9. Create automated welcome messages
  10. Direct callers to the appropriate department or individual
  11. Follow up with customers
  12. Generate reports
  13. Monitor call volumes
  14. Set call forwarding
  15. Create call logs
  16. Offer after-hours support
  17. Send out reminders
  18. Handle overflow calls
  19. Record customer feedback
  20. Upload contact information into a database

HelpSquad Plans and Pricing

HelpSquad’s 24/7 managed chats at the time of publishing are found below.

Custom pricing plans available for larger accounts. Part-time and Full-time Dedicated Virtual Assistant pricing as well as Virtual Receptionist pricing is available following initial discovery conversation. (Starts at only $695 per month)

24/7 managed chat plans:

  • Jump Start – $185 per month, 50 unique chats/engagements
  • Business Plan– $350 per month, 100 unique chats/engagements
  • Advanced – $600 per month, 200 unique chats/engagements

 

HelpSquad offers a 14-day free trial with ALL plans, so you can give HelpSquad a try and get a feel for their service before committing to a long-term plan.

HelpSquad Alternatives

The closest alternatives I’ve found to HelpSquad would be virtual receptionist services like Ruby Receptionists (for phone support; not live chat), but you could also hire a freelance customer support agent.

The drawback to that is natural limits to their availability, where HelpSquad’s team approach makes sure you always have coverage.

Your Turn

Have you worked with HelpSquad? If so, please leave a review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

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Tasks Assistant

UPDATE November 2020: They are currently offering 3 Days free trial (12 hours of services) without paying or sign up.

Tasks Assistant is a virtual assistant company based in Mumbai, India.

The company has been operating since 2014, and all of their virtual assistants are trained and managed in their Mumbai offices.

About Tasks Assistant

Task Assistant ReviewThe company was founded by partners, Javed and Sam, with the intention of helping small business owners and entrepreneurs streamline their workflow by providing skilled virtual assistants at a competitive rate.

They provide 24/7 support, so timezones and business hours are not an issue, which is worth pointing out as their VA’s are based in their offices in Mumbai.

So, if you feel like you’re spending too much time on those day-to-day tasks that could be handled by someone else and not enough time growing your business, Tasks Assistant are waiting for your call.

How Tasks Assistant Works

All of their standard plans (excluding their pay-as-you-go plan) includes a dedicated assistant. There is a simple onboarding process from meeting your new assistant to assigning them work as follows:

  1. After you sign up for a plan a member of their operations team will contact you to discuss your requirements in detail.
  2. They will assign the best-suited virtual assistant to handle your tasks and email you their details to look through.
  3. If you’re happy with the assistant, you can start communicating directly with them via email, phone, skype, whatever channel you prefer, and start working together.

3 Days free trial (12 hours of services) without paying or sign up.

Tasks Assistant Services

Tasks Assistant say their assistants can handle just about any task that can be completed remotely.

To give you an idea, they group a lot of their tasks into the following categories:

  • Personal/Administrative Tasks
  • Data Entry
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Social Media Management
  • Bookkeeping and Accounting
  • Real Estate Tasks
  • Graphic Design
  • Web Development
  • Email and Chat Support
  • PPC and AdWords Management

Tasks Assistant Plans and Pricing

Tasks Assistant have 5 plans to choose from. Basically, it comes down to two hourly rates. Their pay-as-you-go plan is $9.99 per hour, and all their other plans are decrease in price with the more hours you purchase.

The minimum spend for their pay-as-you-go plan, which they call their Small package is $99.9 for 10 hours. This plan is among the lowest cost virtual assistant services I’ve found, and their larger plans are an excellent value as well.

A complete list of their plans at the time of publishing is as follows:

  • Small – Pay as you go – $9.99 per hour.
  • Standard – 10 hour free trial – 40 hours of assistance – $6.99 per hour.
  • Premium – 10 hour free trial – 80 hours of assistance – $5.99 per hour.
  • Most Popular – 20 hours free trial – 160 hours of assistance – $4.99 per hour.

Task Assistant Pricing

The $6.99 hourly rate is very competitive. If you’re going to shop around for other quotes, you’ll find other virtual assistant companies in India offering similar rates, but it’s about as low as it gets.

UPDATE November 2020: They are currently offering 3 Days free trial (12 hours of services) without paying or sign up.

Tasks Assistant Alternatives

If Tasks Assistant’s rates are in the ballpark you’re looking for I recommend checking out other virtual assistant companies based in India.

VA Talks and My Tasker have a good deal of positive feedback to help you with your decision, and I know VA Talks offer a free trial as well.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Tasks Assistant? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

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Task Papa

Task Papa is a virtual assistant company based in Mumbai, India. The company was founded in 2012, but have been flying under my radar until recently.

Their company philosophy is to provide virtual assistants, or ‘task officers’ as they call them, to busy business owners. They provide a cost-effective solution and free up time for the business owners as their task officers handle some of their workload.

Exclusive discount! Use Code VAATP for a Flat 10% Off on all plans for first 6 month!

About Task Papa

task papa review

Task Papa operates out of the economic heart of India, Mumbai. All of their workers are based in their offices and managed in-house. I spoke with Amit Joshi, Sales Manager for Task Papa, he commented, “We strongly believe in giving awesome results to our clients and this is only possible when you have in-house workers.”

Their team is currently 40+ strong and growing, with several on-site project managers, and an additional layer of operations management to oversee all the virtual assistants.

The company founder, Devang Selani, has over 10 years of experience in the customer service industry. He was inspired to start Task Papa after visiting and experiencing working with clients in the US.

Amit described their target customers as, “anyone and everyone who wants to save time. This could be anyone from businessmen to self-employed workers to freelancers.” As for their areas of specialization, personal assistants and admin officers seem to be where they place most of their focus.


Task Papa Founder Interview

Exclusive discount! Use Code VAATP for a Flat 10% Off on all plans for first 6 month!

Task Papa’s Services

Getting started with Task Papa couldn’t be easier. You can sign up via their website for a free quote, or enquire about any special requirements you have. Plus, they offer a free trial period, with no credit card information or commitment asked of you.

If you know what you want, they have set hourly packages of 160, 80, 40 hours. With the hourly rate reducing per the more hours you sign up for. They also offer a pay as you go option, with a minimum of 5 hours per week.

Naturally, the task officers at Task Papa can handle a wide range of administrative tasks, such as:

  • Admin
  • Personal Assistant duties
  • HR and recruitment
  • SEO and online marketing
  • Website maintenance and Hosting
  • Writing
  • Customer care
  • and more

Task Papa’s Plans and Pricing

Task Papa currently has five different payment plans. They have three different hourly plans and a pay-as-you-go plan.

Their hourly rates start at $11.95 per hour for a 40-hour package, with the rate dropping to $9.95 per hour with their maximum 160-hour package.

Their pay as you go plan is $12.95 per hour.

Full Pricing Table (accurate at the time of publishing):

  • 40 hrs per month – $478 ($11.95/hr)
  • 80 hrs per month – $876 ($10.95/hr)
  • 160 hrs per month – $1592 ($9.95/hr)
  • Pay As You Go – $12.95/hr

Exclusive discount! Use Code VAATP for a Flat 10% Off on all plans for first 6 month!

Why Task Papa?

When I asked Amit what sets Task Papa apart from their competitors, he gave me a few points to consider.

Free Trial Period – Not all virtual assistant companies offer a free trial. Task Papa does, and it’s a great way to get a feel for their services.

Experienced Team – Task Papa has a strict filtering process to ensure they are matching their clients needs with the most appropriate virtual assistant.

Guarantee – They offer a guarantee that 100% of the work will be completed to the client’s satisfaction.

Dedicated Task Officers – At Task Papa they do not use shared task officers. When you hire an officer, they are the only person you are working with.

Discounted rates for NGOs – Task Papa are proud to support NGOs and offer some discounted packages. Contact them directly for details.

Task Papa Alternatives

Looking at virtual assistant companies based in India, My Tasker might be worth a look. Other well-rated firms to consider are Uassist.ME in El Salvador or Task Bullet in the Philippines.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Task Papa? If so, please leave a review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

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The Perfect Tools a Person Can Use After Hiring a Virtual Assistant

The Perfect Tools a Person Can Use After Hiring a Virtual Assistant

You have finally decided to reduce your workload and successfully hired a Virtual Assistant. Now the next question comes to your mind- What tools and tasks should you assign your Virtual Assistant? What exactly can you Virtual Assistant do for you? How will your Virtual Assistant work?

Virtual Assistants can help in understanding your user queries, create content and share relevant information. They have no work time restrictions, which means they will be able to you all the time.

In simple words, Virtual Assistants can assist you with almost every admin task that can’t be automated. Here are some tasks that your Virtual Assistant assistant can do for you-

  • Functions that can contribute to your business growth- managing social channels, manage recruitments, creating relevant content.
  • Time-consuming admin tasks, including email management, travel arrangements, blogging, reminder services, etc.
  • Tasks concerning research- market research, deep online research, etc.

Hire the best virtual assistance agency that can effectively handle your tasks. 

Importance of Virtual Assistance Service

Personal assistants always need to work closely with their employer, both geographically and literally. With the rise of shared workspaces and technology such as Skype and the Cloud, in-house work is becoming impractical and outdated.

Since online business operations and interactions are becoming relevant, a virtual assistant team is now a valuable resource for companies of all sizes and shapes.

A virtual assistant team works similarly to their onsite predecessors. However, instead of being constrained in the office, Virtual Assistants can work for your business from anywhere in the world.

Virtual Assistant Makes Your Worklife Easier

Businesses always need to have a strong online presence, which is challenging in this competitive industry. 

Hiring a professional virtual assistance service will make your life easier by offering the best services. As they will help to take your workload and handle your time-consuming tasks.

Drive Your Business Growth

As a business owner, it becomes tedious for you to manage all the tasks by yourself. Hire a talented virtual assistant team and describe your requirements. 

All you need to do is develop an understanding of your business ethics and current policies before the process begins. They’ll find opportunities and develop strategies to grow your business. 

Helps to Save Money

When you hire an employee, you offer them a salary and also take care of few more things:

  • Taxes
  • Compensation
  • Sickness Leaves
  • Other benefits

While virtual assistants are independent workers. You’ll not be liable to handle their expenses. You only need to hire them for a specific job and pay them as required.

Offers Higher Productivity

Since you hire a virtual assistance agency for a specific job, you don’t need to worry about productivity. VAs don’t work under the traditional 8-hours workday. The work under strict timelines. 

They dedicate all their time to complete the tasks on time or even before the deadline.

Reduces Your Work Stress

As a business owner, you might need to take care of several important tasks. With the hectic schedule, you might miss out on certain tasks.

You can use the help of a virtual assistant. Your e-commerce virtual assistant can assist you with crucial tasks, including-

  • Conduct market research
  • Email Management
  • Important event scheduling
  • Implementing Search Engine Optimization
  • Developing Content 
  • Online Marketing
  •  Data Entry
  •  Answering calls 
  •  Web Development

Professional virtual assistants are incredibly skilled in various sectors and help an efficient organization of your store. 

Now that you’ve hired a virtual assistance agency, you need to monitor their performance. But how? We’ve enlisted the perfect tool to monitor performance you can use after hiring a Virtual Assistant. 

Time and Activity Tracker

The payment you offer a Virtual Assistant depends on the time taken to complete the task. Therefore, with time and activity trackers, you can monitor the time taken to complete every task. 

Communication Tools For Real-time Direct Interactions

  • Skype
  • Microsoft Teams 
  • Flock
  • Slack
  • Chanty

With these communication tools, you can directly connect with your virtual assistant team and share your requirements and feedback.

Video Conferencing For Discussions And Meetings

  • Zoom
  • Join.me
  • Google Meet
  • GoToMeeting
  • Zoho Meeting

Want you to introduce your Virtual Assistant to the team? Want your Virtual Assistant to present a report? Want your Virtual Assistant to coordinate with your internal team? You can use these video conferencing tools for such purposes. 

Tools To Schedule Meeting and Appointments

  • Google Calendar
  • SimplyBook.me
  • Calendly
  • Setmore

Don’t miss out on another crucial meeting with your virtual assistance agency. Schedule your meeting using these excellent meeting scheduling tools.  

Project Management Tools

  • Monday.com
  • Basecamp
  • Asana
  • Trello

With project management tools, you and your internal team don’t need to stay connected with the virtual assistance team to understand any project’s progress. You can simply access the project management tool to understand the current progress. 

Social Media Management Tools

  • Buffer
  • Oktopost
  • Later
  • Hootsuite
  • Sprout Social

Want to know what social media strategy your Virtual Assistant has developed? With social media management tools, you can track your current social media campaign and understand upcoming social media strategy. 

Use these tools to enjoy maximum benefits from your virtual assistant team. 

About Author

Billy Brown – is a published content creator and digital marketer. Being a skilled and passionate person he has applied the best efforts to stay with the marketing trends. Virtual Assistant management is one of his  biggest strength. As an SEO expert, I believe in providing the best digital marketing solutions with my glorious experience in multiple sectors. EcomVA is one such platform where you can see I have put my efforts, skills, and time in the growth of business.

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Bottleneck Distant Assistants (formerly Bottleneck Virtual Assistants)

Bottleneck Distant Assistants sources executive and administrative assistants who work remotely in the Philippines.

About Bottleneck Distant Assistants

Bottleneck’s target customers are entrepreneurs that are experiencing growth in their existing company and are finding it more and more difficult to manage their tasks on a daily basis.

The majority of customers are based in the US, the UK, and Canada, while assistants work from their home offices in the Philippines.

“We are noticing a large amount of call center workers leaving that line of work for virtual assistant work,” Jaime explained. “While these people don’t have the same type of experience, they are eager to learn and they work hard.”

What Bottleneck Distant VA Offers

Bottleneck Distant Assistants provides a dedicated support team, offering six core roles that can handle your business’s administrative needs:

  1. Executive Assistants: Managing emails, schedules, travel, and general office support.
  2. Success Managers: Overseeing customer success, ensuring client satisfaction, and managing key client relationships.
  3. Bookkeepers: Handling day-to-day financial operations, including invoicing, payroll, and account reconciliation.
  4. Customer Service Representatives: Managing inbound calls, emails, and client support inquiries.
  5. Project Coordinators: Keeping your projects organized and on track, from timelines to task management.
  6. Social Media Coordinators: Planning and scheduling posts, engaging with followers, and supporting social media campaigns.

What They Do NOT Do

While they provide comprehensive administrative support, it’s important to clarify what Bottleneck Distant Assistants does not do. They do not offer services in strategy, marketing, sales, or copywriting. Instead, they support those roles by managing the administrative tasks that allow your team to focus on higher-level decisions. Their assistants are experts in handling all things administrivia, allowing your team to focus on what they do best.

Their Rigorous Vetting Process

They take care of the heavy lifting when it comes to sourcing and vetting your distant assistant. Every candidate goes through a comprehensive personality assessment, technology check, and English comprehension evaluation. They ensure they have the skills, mindset, and cultural fit to support your business goals.

  • English Comprehension: All our assistants are fluent in English, ensuring seamless communication with your team.
  • Technology Check: Each assistant is required to document their technology setup, including backup systems to prevent downtime.
  • Personality Assessment: We use advanced personality assessments to gauge work styles, communication preferences, and ensure a strong fit within your company culture.

How it Works

Getting started with Bottleneck Distant Assistants is simple. You’ll begin by completing a brief form and scheduling a 30-minute consultation. During this time, their team will walk you through their process and gather the necessary information to match you with the best candidate.

From there, their recruitment team identifies potential candidates, and they’ll set up an introduction meeting with the assistant they believe is the best fit. If the match isn’t perfect, they’ll present alternative candidates until they find the right one.

The Integrated Services Program™ (ISP)

Bottleneck Distant Assistants is a full-service program. Naturally, one person can’t do everything, so Bottleneck Distant created the Integrated Services Program™ (ISP). 

They understand that no single assistant can be an expert in everything. That’s why they created the Integrated Services Program™ (ISP), giving you access to additional skills through your dedicated assistant. This program allows you to tap into expertise in:

  • Website management (WordPress)
  • Social media management
  • Graphic design
  • Audio/video editing

Part-time clients (up to 20 hours per week) have access to 3 hours per week of ISP services, while full-time clients (up to 40 hours per week) receive 6 hours per week. Additional hours can be purchased as needed to meet deadlines.

Bottleneck Distant Assistant Plans and Pricing

They offer several pricing options based on your needs and all their pricing are 100% subscription-based with no contracts or minimums:

Remote Service Plan:

  • Full-time (40 hours/week): $1,947/month
  • Part-time (20 hours/week): $1,312/month

Remote Service with ISP:

  • Full-time: $2,370/month with 6 hours/week of ISP services
  • Part-time: $1,737/month with 3 hours/week of ISP services

They also offer office-based assistants through our Remote Office Service for added security, with assistants working from secure, dedicated offices in the Philippines. 

Bottleneck Distant Assistants Alternatives

When I asked Jaime what sets Bottleneck Distant Assistant apart from the competition, he mentioned their vetting process is designed to minimize risks for both clients and VAs.

“There are stories of VAs not getting paid and stories of clients not getting the work done that was promised and their assistant seemed to just disappear. While we can’t guarantee that will ever happen on either end, we do have a great system in place,” Jaime explained.

Another resource to look into is OnlineJobs.ph, especially if you’re comfortable doing the job posting and candidate screening yourself. The service costs $69 a month but you should have no problem finding the right person for the job within a month or two.

Once hired you’ll just pay your VA directly each pay period. You’ll find full-time candidates at a fraction of the cost of Bottleneck Distant Assistant, but have to forego the other benefits like team access.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Bottleneck Distant Assistants? If so, please be sure to leave a review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

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Virtual Assistant Jobs

Virtual Assistant Job

Have a killer resume but not sure where to look to land your deam job or find your next client? Here are some great virtual assistant jobs to help you out!

See: Becoming a Virtual Assistant – Take our free-3 day course!

Just Remote

Just Remote is an online remote job board platform. Just Remote populate their listings by collating remote job listings from all over the internet and taking job listings directly through their site.

The company is headquartered in London, England. As an employer, it costs $189 to list a job for 30 days.

As a job seeker, you can browse most of their listings for free. Just Remote do offer a ‘Power Search’, however, which costs $5/mo.

Check out their review page.

GoLance

GoLance is an online workforce platform that connects employers with freelancers based all over the globe.

They provide the platform for freelancers and employers to connect and handle the payments and contracts between the two parties.

They have developed their own tool called goMeter Time Tracking to enable clients to monitor activity, a work diary summarizing monthly gigs and communications, and a smartphone app so you can stay connected on the move.

Check out their review page here.

VA Networking

VAnetworking is one of the largest global networking platforms for virtual assistants to connect with each other and utilize resources to help them improve their businesses and find more opportunities.

On the client side, VAnetworking accepts job postings from businesses and allows their paid members to respond.

Check it out here!

Dynamite Jobs

Dynamite Jobs is an online platform aggregating and sharing the best remote jobs from more than 300 different sources every week, as well as taking job listings directly through their site.

If you’re looking for a position where you can work remotely, or you’re a business looking to hire a remote worker, you can either browse the listings on their site or speak with a member of their team for help finding a position/candidate that meets your requirements.

It’s free to post a job or freelance gig on Dynamite Jobs. They’ll keep your posting on the homepage for 30 days and you can direct candidates directly to your application process.

However, if you’re looking to move faster and get greater exposure for your gig, you’ll probably want to opt for the $197 “Boosted Listing” option.

 

HireMyMom

HireMyMom.com is an online employment outsourcing service that specializes in working-from-home moms.

The company was founded in 2007 by entrepreneur Lesley Spencer Pyle, a mother who had formerly worked in public relations and as a desktop publisher.

HireMyMom has 3 membership options for moms looking for work:

  1. $9.99 for a one week trial
  2. $29.99 for 3-month service
  3. $99 for 6 month Platinum membership including being a Featured Candidate on the home page.For employers, Hire My Mom charges a nominal fee ($24.99-$39) to post a job to their audience.

Become a Virtual Assistant or further your education

Check out our free, 3-day program and other programs that can help you here.

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Ruby Receptionists

Ruby Receptionists, sometimes referred to as Call Ruby, is a Portland, Oregon based virtual answering service for small businesses. The company was founded in 2003 by Jill Nelson, who remains on as CEO.

All the virtual receptionists work out of the company’s Portland call center, and can get you 16 hours of phone coverage a day (12 on the weekends).

The advantage for business owners is to not have to worry about staffing a phone line in-house, or getting disrupted by calls during your work day.

VAA Exclusive: Click here for a special discount on your first full month of service!

Ruby Receptionists Services

ruby receptionists reviewThe Ruby Receptionist service can also give small companies the “illusion” of being much bigger, when customers are promptly greeted by a cheerful, professional receptionist on the phone.

The big idea? Creating real, meaningful connections with callers—building trust and helping you win business.

You can customize the “scripts” and provide other guidelines to Ruby that they’ll follow on your behalf.

The company can even make certain outbound calls on your behalf, to confirm appointments or to relay information, but wouldn’t be considered a lead generation or telemarketing service.

How Ruby Works

You can forward any number to your live Ruby Receptionists, or even get assigned a toll-free number.

They’ll answer with your custom greeting, take messages, forward calls to the appropriate department, and answer FAQs on your behalf.

You’ll get email alerts when you have a new call logged, and can track your usage and real-time call reports in the Call Ruby online dashboard. It’s modern technology coupled with old-fashioned professional, friendly receptionists—so you never miss a beat.

Bilingual Support

Ruby offers service in Spanish at no additional charge.

Ruby Receptionists Intro Video

VAA Exclusive: Click here for a special discount on your first full month of service!

Ruby Receptionists Plans and Pricing

Call Ruby has 3 pricing tiers, which are based on the number of inbound minutes you expect your new receptionist to receive.

ruby receptionists pricing

VAA Exclusive: Click here for a special discount on your first full month of service!

The popular “Impress” plan includes 100 receptionist minutes for $299 a month.

At $2.99 a minute, it’s not a cheap hourly rate virtual assistant, but the true value is having someone “on call” during your business hours for a very low monthly charge.

Unless you’ve been answering the phones yourself for some time, you might not have any idea of the call volume you’ll receive. In that case, it probably makes sense to start at the lower tier and scale up as needed.

The “Engage” plan is the next level up and includes 200 receptionist minutes for $599 per month.

Finally, the 3rd tier allows for up to 500 receptionist minutes for $1269 per month — over 8 hours of inbound talk-time.

If you go over your allotted minutes in any of the plans, additional minutes are simply charged a pro-rated rate on your service level.

All plans come with a 21-day money back guarantee. There are no long-term contracts, but requires a 30-day cancellation notice to terminate the service.

Ruby Receptionists Alternatives

Ruby is one of the most prominent companies in this space, though services like Gabbyville might also be considered.

Ruby Receptionists Gabbyville DaVinci 1-888-GoAnswer
Customer Rating not rated not rated
Established 2003 2013 2006 2003
Minimum Monthly Cost $299 for 100 minutes $229 for 150 minutes $99 for 50 minutes $110 for 100 minutes
Price per Minute $2.99 $1.53 $2.00 $1.10
Set-Up Fee $99 $95 $75
Trial 14-Day Free Trial 14-Day Free Trial 30-Day Risk-Free
Learn more Learn More Learn More Learn More Learn More

On the more “virtual assistant” side of things, I’ve seen some people turning to Uassist.me for on-call receptionists — but no guarantee the call gets picked up every time like with Ruby. (Uassist’s US-branch, Uassist.US is testing a similar call-answering service.)

For outgoing calls, Outbounders.com might be worth a look.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Ruby Receptionists? If so, please leave a brief review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

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6 Reasons to Hire English/Spanish Bilingual Virtual Assistants

The Benefits of Hiring Bilingual Virtual Assistants

In recent years, more and more professionals have opted to hire virtual assistants. Here you can read 6 reasons why hiring a bilingual assistant benefits you!

Having a trained virtual assistant from one of the top virtual assistant companies increases productivity. It allows you to focus on parts of your job that benefit from your talent and expertise. If you’ve been considering hiring a virtual assistant, it’s important to consider a bilingual Spanish virtual assistant during your hiring process. 

With 13.5% of United States households speaking Spanish, failing to cater to Spanish-speakers automatically keeps your business from reaching its full potential. For example, if you own a bookstore and don’t speak Spanish, you’re missing out on all of the business of the Spanish-speaking population in your area. If your bookstore exists online, you are missing out on the business of the Spanish-speaking population all over the country. 

While learning a second language might not be in the cards for you, there’s an easier way to make your business more friendly to Spanish-speakers: Hire a Spanish-speaking virtual assistant. Here are the top reasons to add a bilingual virtual assistant to your team. 

1. You can tap into the growing Spanish-speaking customer base in the U.S., Canada, and Latin America.

Having bilingual members working for your organization can open up more opportunities for your business. With the help of a Spanish-speaking virtual assistant, you can make your products and services more accessible to the Spanish-speaking customer base in the U.S. and Canada. The demand for bilingual or Spanish-speaking business is growing rapidly, and this can give your company an advantage.

2. Cost-saving. 

Hiring a bilingual Spanish virtual assistant prevents you from having to hire two people to do the same job. Rather than employing a customer service representative to deal with your English-speaking clientele and a Spanish-speaking person to deal with your Spanish clientele, why not just hire one person who can do both? With a bilingual Spanish virtual assistant, you can provide customer service in both languages without the hassle and expense of hiring two employees, or multiple contractors.

3. Improved communication.

Being fluent in two languages is no small feat. Individuals who master two languages demonstrate the skills and patience to communicate clearly and effectively. Often, those who are bilingual have to translate for friends and family, so communicating information accurately is second nature. This clear communication helps you avoid mistakes and misunderstandings at work and ensures peace of mind when your bilingual Spanish virtual assistant communicates with your clients.

4. Better SEO, for better Google Rankings. 

Having a bilingual Spanish virtual assistant can help you boost your SEO tactics in other languages. Just because your website comes up reliably in English-speaking markets doesn’t mean it’s effective for people searching in Spanish. Having bilingual input gives you the insight and opportunity to boost website traffic and hits. 

5. A wider audience for email and marketing efforts. 

Your Spanish-speaking virtual assistant will be able to translate emails, ads, and customer service statements to apply to your Spanish clients. Translation engines tend to make translations sound unnatural, and conversational Spanish from a fluent speaker often catches customers’ interest. If you have a Spanish-speaking client base or are looking to draw a Spanish-speaking client base, do not rely on Google Translate sites for your content. A Spanish-speaking virtual assistant will be much more effective at translation. Additionally, your bilingual virtual assistant can provide priceless inside information about what your Spanish-speaking clients want and need. This kind of access to the Spanish-speaking world cannot be found in a focus group or survey.

6. Better communication and a wider reach with interpretation and translation services. 

Bilingual virtual assistants can add significant value to your business. A bilingual virtual assistant who can communicate in both English and Spanish can significantly improve communication between you and your clients.  It can also open up doors to expanding your client base. This is especially useful in growing industries such as healthcare, or the legal industry. 

  • Physicians: Healthcare workers need to communicate with patients and their families in English or Spanish. 
  • Immigration Attorneys: As immigration grows, lawyers and other staff members may need to speak or interpret in both English and Spanish, or have documents translated so that their customers understand what they say. 
  • General Attorneys: As the Spanish language continues to grow in popularity, attorneys, regardless of their practice areas, may need translation or interpretation services to communicate information regarding a case. 

Having a bilingual virtual assistant who can clearly translate, communicate, and interpret in both English and Spanish can be a huge asset to these industries. 

Hire an Asset for Your Business with a Bilingual Virtual Assistant 

Bilingual Spanish virtual assistants are an asset to almost every company. No matter your business platform or area, being able to cater to the Spanish-speaking world is a good thing. Hiring a Spanish virtual assistant from Virtual Latinos ensures that you can cater to your customers no matter their background and gives you endless opportunities to grow your markets. As one of the top virtual assistant companies, they are ready to pair you with an assistant who meets your exact needs. With assistants based everywhere from Peru to Chile to Guatemala, you’re sure to find a Spanish virtual assistant who’s right for you and who is in your time zone. Don’t wait a day longer; hire your virtual assistant today. 

An Alternative to Virtual Latinos

Check out the reviews of Uassit.ME for an alternative Latin American Virtual Assistant company or see our locations page!

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UnicornGO

UnicornGO is a subscription-based design service offering unlimited and unrestricted graphic design requests for a flat monthly fee.

They are one of the newer graphic design service companies to enter the space, and their head offices are based in Sydney, NSW Australia. Their designers work remotely all over the globe.

About UnicornGO

The first thing that jumps out about UnicornGO which separates them from a lot of the established graphic design companies is their business model. When you sign up with UnicornGO you pay a flat fee for unlimited monthly designs and unlimited revisions.

Their objective is to make their service “Like having a dedicated design team without the price tag.” As a client, you are assigned a team of designers to work with and as you see some of the designs from the team you can choose to work with individuals that best understand your vision if you wish.

The company is headed up by co-founder Francis Lee. With over 16 years of experience in the sales and marketing industry, hiring and working with designers on a regular basis, Francis saw a gap in the market for a subscription model design company and started UnicornGO.

UnicornGO’s target customers are mainly startups and small businesses looking for regular, professional, and dynamic designs, but can’t afford or do not see the need for their own in-house graphic designer.

VAA Exclusive: Use UnicornGO coupon code VIRTADIR17 for $10 off your first month of service!

UnicornGO Services

UnicornGO’s graphic designers are able to handle any form of the graphic design task. This includes:

  • Infographics
  • Website design
  • Logos
  • Mobile UI
  • Book covers
  • Banners
  • Blog post headers
  • Flyers, and more.

There is a simple 3-step process in place from ordering your designs to receiving the completed work:

  1. You send them your design request with all the details of the task. Your designer will give you an estimate of the time it will take.
  2. Your design is delivered within the time specified in the format you requested, and you have some time to review the work.
  3. You can submit as many revisions as feel necessary to get the design exactly how you want it.

Plans and Pricing

UnicornGO has a straightforward menu of pricing options, ranging from $399 to $999 a month.

I’ll do my best to outline the main differences between the plans here.

The $399 Unlimited plan affords you “unlimited” design requests for unlimited brands. The only real throttle or limitation on this is that you can only submit one design request at a time, and they promise to turn it around in 1-2 business days.

The $399 Unlimited plan affords you “unlimited” design requests for unlimited brands and the key difference is that you can submit two design requests at a time with the same turnaround times.

At the top of the line, the $999 Big Unicorn plan removes that submission throttle, letting you submit up to 3 design requests at a time, and promises an express 24-hour turnaround.

VAA Exclusive: Use UnicornGO coupon code VIRTADIR17 for $10 off your first month of service!

There are no contracts, you can cancel at any time, and there is a 14-day money-back guarantee to ensure you’re satisfied with the service when you first sign up.

UnicornGO Alternatives

Flocksy and Design Pickle are two US-based graphic design companies that also operate on the monthly subscription model and have very similar pricing plans. Penji is another great US-based alternative, they hire from the Philippines, which make their pricing plans attractive.

If you don’t anticipate having enough ongoing work to get value from a monthly plan I recommend checking out Fiverr for one-off tasks.

Your Turn

Have you had some graphics designs from UnicornGO? If so, please leave a short review below to help others with their decision.

 

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