UPDATE: It appears TayStone BPO is offline and no longer operating. Please see below for some Time Etc, OnlineJobs.ph, or Task Bullet as alternatives.
TayStone BPO is a business-class virtual assistant company, providing virtual assistants for entrepreneurs and small businesses all over the globe.
The company has been in operation since 2012. They are a family-owned business operating primarily out of Liverpool, England, while their virtual assistants are based throughout the UK, the Philippines, and in the US.
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About TayStone
The company is managed by CEO Keith Taylor, with Sarah Taylor providing training and educational direction. Their headquarters are in Liverpool, England, with satellite offices in Northern Ireland, New York and the Philippines.
The company is completely remote, however they do arrange meetings in any of these locations for staff training and events when required.
TayStone specializes in working with all sizes and types of organizations from startups to established companies, entrepreneurs to small and large businesses. Although most of their virtual assistants are based in the Philippines, they also have staff in the UK and the US. This is to offer a “local feel” to their customers where required.
Keith explained they are extremely selective in their hiring process, eventually bringing on less than 1% of all applicants.
Services
The company provides two different services:
Dedicated Offshore Virtual Assistance – With this service, you are assigned a virtual assistant based in the Philippines. You will communicate with the VA directly and build up a relationship over time.
On Demand US or UK Virtual Assistance – With this service, you submit tasks to UK or US based virtual assistant teams to complete.
Both services come with a wide range of benefits as detailed in the plans and pricing below.
The two different services give you the option of either using virtual assistance from staff based in your home country and working normal business hours similar to yours, or staff in the Philippines, which is naturally much less expensive.
TayStone points out that they put a lot of emphasis on ensuring there are backup plans in place should the worst case happen. They are aware that Internet connectivity or power issues can be a problem when working with VAs overseas and have set emergency backup plans in place to ensure work flow is not interrupted for long.
Their larger plans also include a backup VA in case your assistant falls ill.
TayStone Founder Interview
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Plans and Pricing
TayStone offers four dedicated offshore virtual assistant plans.
These start with a Lite plan, which includes 20 hours per month at a rate of $8.75 per/hr.
The Part-Time plan includes 80 hours per month at $8.50 per/hr, the Busy plan with 120 hours per month at $8.25 per/hr, and a Full-Time plan with 160 hours per month at $8.00 per/hr.
These plans are sold as a monthly subscription service with a dedicated virtual assistant.
All plans come with a local US phone number, unlimited in/out calls, secure PC and high speed internet with backup and local US management. The larger plans have additional services bolted on, such as a backup employee in place, SMS alerts, call transfers, and more.
Their on demand US virtual assistant plans start at 10 hours per month at $27/hr, ranging up to 80 hours per month at $22/hr.
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With these on-demand plans, your hours are converted into buckets of tasks, each with a 20-minute allocation. For example, with the 10 Hour Bundle, you’ll get 30 20-minute tasks for your $270 subscription. If you have tasks you anticipate taking longer than 20 minutes, just let your VA know it’s OK to use more task credits.
(This seems like an unnecessarily complex conversion process, and would perhaps be simpler to just think of buying the promised number of VA hours.)
In contrast to the offshore plans above, these plans come with a dedicated account manager but tasks may be assigned across TayStone’s entire team of VAs, rather than a dedicated VA you work with each time.
Because there are a lot of services offered in their plans, I recommend contacting TayStone and detailing your exact requirements to be matched with the best plan. (This BPO division is part of a larger call-answering and admin assistance company, so they are well-equipped to handle a variety of business needs.)
TayStone BPO Alternatives
While the on-demand service is somewhat unique for US-based assistants, Time Etc is a well-rated alternative that offers a similar array of monthly packages in both the US and the UK.
For the dedicated offshore staff, your best bets are OnlineJobs.ph for direct hires or Task Bullet if you prefer working through a third-party company. With OnlineJobs you won’t have the infrastructure or backups, but you will have much lower ongoing costs. Task Bullet is a smaller operation than TayStone but has a unique pricing system where you just buy a bucket of hours that don’t renew monthly or expire until you use them up.
Your Turn
Have you worked with TayStone, either with their US or UK team, or their virtual assistants in the Philippines? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.