What is a Managed Virtual Assistant Service?

Busy executives looking to offload admin work are increasingly utilizing the administrative expertise of virtual assistants. Traditionally this meant contracting with an individual offshore on a per-hour or per-task basis. 

This comes with tons of advantages—you don’t have to cover benefit or overhead and you can access affordable expertise. 

Related: Read a review about one of our top-rated VA companies.

As businesses got more comfortable with remote work and outsourcing, new options started to crop up with new advantages. Now, instead of going straight to a job board and dealing with hiring, executives can reach out to agencies and managed virtual assistant services to connect with pre-vetted, trained professionals. 

There are two main options for these virtual assistant services: managed and unmanaged.

What is an Unmanaged Virtual Assistant Service?

There are a number of unmanaged VA models available.

The first is the traditional model—going to a service such as Upwork and posting a listing or finding someone listing their services. In this situation, you do the recruiting, vetting, and managing yourself. It can take a long time to sort through your available options, do interviews, potentially background checks, and get references. Once hired, these assistants are contractors that you manage. 

The second main option is virtual assistant agencies. These services maintain a “bench” of candidates, and you can choose the one most suited to your business. In this case, available assistants are pre-vetted. You don’t have to find and hire them yourself. Sometimes these services just do the matching, like a traditional staffing agency. In other cases, you may pay the service, and the VA is contracted to them.

What all unmanaged VA models have in common is that the VA’s onboarding, training, and performance management is up to you.

What is a Managed Virtual Assistant Service?

A managed virtual assistant service works a little differently. 

In a managed model, the assistants are hired, trained, overseen, and paid by the service provider. They typically provide a management layer that comes with value-added services such as delegation consulting, service continuity, and security.

This approach is often facilitated by a leading platform connecting businesses with service providers, streamlining the process of finding the right talent and ensuring the right fit for your business needs.

Essentially, a managed virtual assistant service is the next evolution of a virtual assistant agency. They provide many of the same benefits plus an extra layer of management and consultation.

Which Model to Choose?

If you’re looking to hire a VA, knowing which type of service is best for you isn’t a one-size-fits-all type of approach. It’s going to depend on the extent, and complexity, of your administrative needs.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of each model.

Advantages of Unmanaged Services

One of the primary reasons to hire an offshore virtual assistant is the cost. Hiring an assistant directly is going to be your cheapest option since you’ll only be paying their hourly rate, which can vary significantly.

Any agency or management layer will add some additional  cost. 

Additionally, an unmanaged service gives you:

• Complete control over how you work with the VA
• Complete ability to manage assistant hours and budget
• The ability to hire for specialized skills

Disadvantages of Unmanaged Services

The two biggest disadvantages of directly hiring a virtual assistant are time and risk.

The whole process is on you. You have to do the recruiting, interviewing, and vetting. And then, you have to train them, manage your projects, and manage their performance. 

You also have to consider the overhead of payroll, legal compliance with the VAs home country, and managing to their technology (how’s their internet, is their laptop fast enough, do they have the software you need?). Plus, you’re giving up a measure of control over the data you give them access to and their security practices. It can be a big risk.

If it doesn’t work out, you have to start all over with the next VA candidate.

Advantages of Managed Services

Managed virtualassistant services may be more expensive, but they take much of the time and risk off your shoulders. The primary advantage of this model is that you get a team behind your VA that makes the service turnkey on your part.

You Don’t Have to Manage Another Employee

The VAs at managed virtual assistant services are full-time employees of the service. That means they get benefits, PTO, training, and the technology they need. 

Executives are paired with a VA and an Engagement Manager, both dedicated to not only completing tasks, but also to proactively improving your processes. No handholding required.

You Have a Team Behind the Team

With a managed service such as Prialto, you’re not just hiring an independent contractor. You’re hiring an entire support team that includes:

• An engagement manager that serves as your advocate—proactively managing your processes, working with your feedback, and managing your assistant’s performance. 
• Trained backup support that can step in when your virtual assistant is out of office.
• Team management that is constantly working on ongoing training, managing performance, and pushing teams to improve.
• A cohort of VAs that, between them, have seen just about every VA challenge and help one another when questions or roadblocks arise.

You Achieve Scalability

Scaling is always the goal. As your business grows, so do your administrative needs.

A managed solution is much easier to scale up (or down) as business conditions change. It takes about 40 days and $4,000 to hire office workers the old-fashioned way.

If you want to add more VAs with a managed service, you can hire them in a few weeks.  Your processes are already documented so they get up to speed a lot faster.

You Have a Lower Security Risk

Giving an independent contractor or freelancer access to your work using a BYOD computer has obvious security risks. How secure are the PC and the home network it sits on? What software do they use? Are they plugging sensitive data into ChatGPT? How do you know?

Finally, personal security. Is the individual trustworthy?

Managed virtual assistant services use secure facilities, computers, and networks and perform background checks on all VAs.  Staff also gets regular security training and software updates to ensure consistency and security.

Not all managed services are the same so be sure to ask about the security protocols at the company you choose. 

You Have Access to an Extensive Tech Stack

A managed VA service has hundreds of VAs with experience with just about every tech platform businesses use. CRMs, marketing automation platforms, prospecting tools, calendaring, travel planning, expenses and invoicing, and more.

If a VA needs some training or a refresher course, that’s on the service provider. With an unmanaged VA service, any gaps in knowledge or experience are on you to bridge.

Disadvantages of Managed Services

Managed virtual assistants aren’t for everyone. Here are some of the reasons a managed service might not work.

• You want the lowest price possible. A managed service is high touch, so they won’t be the cheapest option on the market. 
• You need off-hours coverage. Most managed services can accommodate U.S. business hours, but they can’t always offer evening and weekend coverage as local employers.
• Need highly specialized skills like web design or coding. Most managed services focus on general administrative work, sales support, and back-office tasks.
• You only need occasional project help. Most managed VA services require minimum monthly hour commitments.

Use Cases for Managed Virtual Assistant Services

Nothing is right for every business. Managed VA services work well for executives swamped with repetitive work and don’t have enough time to focus on the company. The tasks VAs can take off your plate include:

• Calendar management and scheduling
• Travel planning and expense reporting
• CRM cleanup and maintenance
• Prospecting for leads
• Document preparation
• Back-office tasks (invoicing, data entry)

Managed VA services typically work on a monthly retainer where you pay for a certain number of hours per month. They are not ideal for occasional projects like a quarterly report or creative projects requiring fresh design, writing projects, or graphic design-intensive projects.

Typically, a managed service is a good choice for: 

• Enterprise teams that need scalable support
• Executives who need an extra layer of data security
• Fast-growing teams who are building their processes
• Executives who are too busy to manage additional staff
• And more!

Introducing Prialto

Prialto provides managed virtual assistant and subscription staffing for executives, teams, and businesses. Its virtual assistant services are curated and managed from Prialto’s headquarters in Portland, Oregon, with creative insights from global staff in Asia, Africa, and Central America.