Virtual Assistant Trial: Efficise vs. Red Butler vs. My Tasker vs. Fancy Hands

Virtual Assistant Trial

As you know, I’ve been a happy Fancy Hands customer for several months now, but I wanted to put a few more virtual assistant services to the test to see how they stacked up.

Lately two start-ups had been generating a lot of positive response here on the site so I thought I would try them out myself. The first was Efficise, out of Pakistan, and the second was My Tasker, out of India. Both of these companies were founded by veteran VAs from other firms who decided to strike out on their own.

And finally, Red Butler was kind enough to offer me a trial gift membership so I could compare their service to other virtual assistant companies.

How would the American VAs compare against their overseas competition? Who would deliver the best results?

Over the course of a month, I tested these guys with a series of tasks. They featured a broad range of topics but the actual “work” being done was primarily online research and analysis, with a few phone calls sprinkled in here and there for fun.

Breakdown of the Virtual Assistant Plans

• Fancy Hands – $45 for 15 tasks (50% off your first month through this link)
• My Tasker – $39 for 30 tasks
• Efficise – $45 for 30 tasks (30% off your first month with code NLIND30)
• Red Butler – $99.99 for 30 “credits” (I’ll explain later) + Red Butler Privilege Card (20% off your first month with code VIRTUAL)

Fancy Hands gives the guideline of 15 minutes per task, but in one case spent over a half an hour on the phone without charging double.

My Tasker doesn’t really offer a time-limit on tasks but I imagine if you started to abuse the system you would be asked to upgrade to one of their professional plans. If you run out of tasks before the end of the month, extra ones can be bought at the rate of $2 each.

The Efficise guidelines suggest requests take no longer than 15-30 minutes.

Red Butler charges 1 credit for each “action” they take. For instance, ordering movie tickets and making dinner reservations would take 2 credits. The Red Butler privilege card carries a ton of perks at hotels, restaurants, and bars all around the world. It’s a cool add-on if you live in a major city; out in the San Francisco suburbs I didn’t get much use out of it.

UPDATE: Red Butler now charges 1 credit for anything that takes up to 20 minutes. “If we make 10 calls in that time, it’s still one credit,” VP of Business Development for Red Butler, Nick Ramirez says.

Sign Up Process

The sign up process for each company went pretty smoothly so I just wanted to make a couple notes.

With Fancy Hands, you need to use either a Google or Facebook login to create your account. Just about everyone will already have at least one of those so it’s not a big deal unless you’re really opposed to granting 3rd party access to your accounts. They don’t see your password; it’s just a way to keep you from having to create a separate Fancy Hands account.

My Tasker uses PayPal for their recurring billing, which is pretty pain-free.

Efficise uses the Plimus payment processing system, an up-and-coming competitor to PayPal. If you don’t already have a Plimus account, you’ll have to create one to sign-up. I didn’t and it was still quick and easy. One thing I thought was weird was the tax Efficise added to the subscription fee. At less than $3 it wasn’t a huge deal, but normally VA companies either aren’t charging any tax or they’re baking it into the price.

With Red Butler they created the account for me so I can’t really comment on the sign-up process. One nice touch was I got a welcome call from Amber, their Director of Experience. The downside? It went to voicemail because she called from a blocked number. Can’t imagine many of their too-busy clients make a habit of picking up unrecognized numbers.

Submitting Tasks

Whew, I’m in! And now the fun part can start.

With Fancy Hands, you can submit tasks through their online dashboard, via email or phone, and now through their new mobile app.

For My Tasker, you can submit tasks through their online interface or via email or phone. I primarily used email so I didn’t have to keep logging into their website. Similarly, Efficise accepts requests online, through email, or over Skype. Rumor has it phone support is coming soon.

Red Butler users can beckon their VA by email, phone, mobile app, or the web dashboard. These guys win the design contest with their super-slick new website.

After you submit a task, you’ll get an email confirmation they received it from every company except Efficise.

Virtual Assistant Performance

My basic methodology was to submit the same task to all 4 companies and see who came back with the best results. Most tasks were submitted during US business hours, which put Efficise and My Tasker at an immediate disadvantage because those requests fell on their night-shift crews.

I tried to think of a variety of tasks that would test the VAs in different ways. See if they could understand my idioms and problem solve a bit, you know.

I gave each response a letter grade A through F. Yes, completely subjective but I wasn’t sure how better to normalize the data set I was collecting. In some instances the grades were on something of a “curve” — meaning if I thought the response was good, but then another one came in and blew it out of the water, the initial one probably got downgraded.

One thing I was looking for was some insight and analysis beyond just Googling something. Anybody can do that. The best responses were the ones that took the time to dig a little deeper and provide some personal recommendations.

To view the complete list of tasks I submitted, along with the response times, grades, and some commentary, please click here.

–>> VA Smackdown Trial — Detailed task list and performance results <<–

Otherwise, I’ll continue with my summary.

The company I was most pleasantly surprised by was My Tasker. Out of 15 tasks, they scored 7 A’s and 5 B’s, the best result of all the virtual assistant companies.

Kudos to Ronny and the team at My Tasker for delivering the goods, even in the middle of the night India time and for a probably too-cheap price-point.

Fancy Hands also scored well, earning 9 A’s and B’s out of only 12 tasks. (I was running low on Fancy Hands tasks so they didn’t get to participate on every one!) In general, I’ve found their assistants willing to go above and beyond for some of the more complex jobs, but every now and then you get the idea they just want to churn through the tasks as fast as possible.

And who can blame them? That’s how they get paid.

Occasionally you get the impression it’s just a glorified “let me Google that for you” service, which is not my idea of a value add. Most of the time, very good though. I’m a fan.

Red Butler was unique in that they made every effort NOT to just drop in links from the search results they found, at least not without some personal explanation and analysis. Their responses were generally very detailed and useful, and they ended up tying My Tasker with 7 A-grades.

One thing that set Red Butler apart was reading beyond the question itself. For example, when I asked about dividend investing, they offered to connect me with a qualified financial planner. When I talked about FHA loans, it was congratulations on the decision to buy a house. I think that extra understanding of the WHY behind the query was really useful and it definitely showed in their responses.

One downside to Red Butler that diminishes the value somewhat is the credit system they use to charge tasks. One relatively simple task I sent was charged 7 credits when the other companies only deducted one. Perhaps not a deal breaker but just something to be aware of, especially when combined with their premium price point.

UPDATE: With their new credit system, that task would probably have been only charged 1 credit.

Finally, Efficise did well on certain tasks but seemed to struggle with understanding and context on others. In general the performance was OK, but more inconsistent than the other companies.

Several of their responses were very short, containing just a few links to the answer. I would have liked to see a little more in-depth thought come through in their answers. I’m asking for help because I don’t have time to read through a bunch of links; I just want the summary version or a recommended action to take.

Response Time

In terms of response time, Fancy Hands’ distributed virtual assistant model proved to be the winner, followed by Red Butler, My Tasker, and Efficise. Their average response time was just over 2 hours. (I removed outliers for this chart.)

My Tasker promises to have a response to you in 4-8 hours and they did well keeping within those limits. I think the only time they went over was on the weekend and the task required making calls during US business hours. My Tasker also allows you to double down (get charged 2 tasks) and set a task to “urgent” for a response within 2 hours.

Other Notes

The service I tested was for team-based task support. My Tasker, Efficise, and Red Butler all offer dedicated virtual assistant packages at higher price points. However, I was curious to see just how “un-dedicated” these low-priced options were.

For the 15 tasks, I was helped by 7 different My Tasker VAs, 4 different Efficise VAs, and 4 different Red Butler VAs. In comparison, I had a unique Fancy Hands VA 11 times out of 12.

If it matters to you, many of the My Tasker VAs use Westernized names, like Tom, Jay, or Daniel, rather than their real Indian names. Remember Rent a Smile and their fake celebrity / superhero names?

Efficise and Red Butler signed their emails with their full names which I always think is a nice professional touch. With Fancy Hands, you get a first name and a last initial.

Next Steps

You made it this far, now what? Here are the profile page links for the different companies:

• Fancy Hands – $45 for 15 tasks (50% off your first month through this link)
• My Tasker – $39 for 30 tasks
• Efficise – $45 for 30 tasks (30% off your first month with code NLIND30)
• Red Butler – $99.99 for 30 credits + Red Butler Privilege Card (20% off your first month with code VIRTUAL)

There you’ll find a more detailed write-up for each service, reviews from real customers, and any relevant sign-up discounts offered through Virtual Assistant Assistant.

Thanks for stopping by! If you have any questions about this trial or about virtual assistants in general, please let me know.