Virtual personal assistant

A virtual personal assistant or virtual assistant (VPA or VA) takes on all tasks for his client (customer) that, from his point of view, distract from the actual core business or cost private time and do not have to be carried out himself. The collaboration takes place virtually, that is, the VPA interacts with its customers using modern information and communication technologies (ICT) .

general description

VPAs and VPA services (including VPA agencies) use modern information and communication tools to carry out their work. Thanks to digitization and high-performance broadband connections , VPAs can do their customers' tasks via telephone , mobile communications , email and the Internet , regardless of where the personal assistant or customer is at the time. Therefore, the collaboration is independent of the physical proximity between the client and the virtual assistant. VPAs work for several customers and are assigned by them flexibly for recurring or always different tasks, whenever the need arises. In principle, all tasks can be given to personal assistants that can be carried out using the information and communication tools described above.

Definition of terms

Personal assistant (private function)

A personal assistant, without the restriction to the virtual way of working, works for customers on site. Personal contact and local proximity to the client is a prerequisite for cooperation. Usually a personal assistant works exclusively for a client and takes care of tasks and errands such as B. Appointment coordination, travel planning, shopping, errands. Such personal assistants are often employed by celebrities and wealthy individuals. In recent years, however, more and more local personal assistance services have been offering this service flexibly and only bookable for individual tasks . Here too, physical proximity to the customer is a prerequisite. Therefore, the operational radius is usually limited to a certain city or region.

Secretary or personal assistant (professional function)

A secretary is firmly integrated into the corporate structure as an employee and is available to an individual superior , a certain group of people or even a department . A personal assistant or secretary usually takes care of general office and administrative activities such as correspondence , coordination of appointments, travel planning etc. Depending on the company environment and responsibilities, the tasks can also be extended to the commercial and content-related areas.

Office service

An office service takes on office work for other companies and offers them an external telephone and secretarial service. An office service acts on behalf of their customers. For example, incoming calls and appointments are accepted on behalf of the respective customer. In some cases, office services also offer customers the option of using office space for a certain period of time or of using the office address as a business address for their own correspondence for representative purposes. An office service usually acts for several clients and works with them externally.

history

The VPA model has existed in the US for some time. According to the International Virtual Assistants Association (ivaa), the term virtual assistance became popular in the United States in the 1990s. The ivaa states 1995 as the year of creation of the virtual assistance, the organization itself was launched in 1999. The term VPA has also long been established in Great Britain. The International Association of Virtual Assistants (IAVA) was also founded there in 1999 to offer the professional group a transnational platform. But it was certainly only the Web 2.0 age and cheap and fast telephone, mobile and internet connections that paved the way for unrestricted, virtual assistance. In Germany, VPA services only became known relatively late. Including through in 2008 published The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss . Not long after the German edition of the book was published, various forums and blogs were online discussing the VPA model and the lack of German providers to date. With growing demand, the first German VPA companies were founded. In Germany, the first VPA companies started in 2009 and 2010 - namely remote work, beach shift, e-assistant and my virtual assistant. In addition to these pioneers, smaller providers were also able to establish themselves.

Virtual personal assistance service

Work process

The way of working and the specific process steps certainly differ between the individual providers. However, the following can be mentioned as rough process steps:

Procurement

The order is placed in the form of a briefing to the respective VPA by e-mail, telephone, SMS, etc. Depending on the type of task and customer relationship, this can be very different in scope, but usually always includes the following points:

• task description
• Timing
• Deadline

The order is awarded either directly to the personal virtual assistant or to a higher-level contact person who, depending on the skills required, distributes the task internally to the relevant VPA.

confirmation of the order

After receipt of the briefing from the customer, an order confirmation will be sent to him together with an estimated time calculation. Any ambiguities will be clarified with the client.

Transmission of the work results

The work results are communicated to the customer by the VPA himself or by the respective direct contact person in the agreed form at the agreed deadline. In the case of more complex or extensive tasks, interim results and status reports may also be transmitted at agreed dates.

Billing

The billing takes place depending on the provider after completion of the respective task or at the end of the month. Is billed either has provided all of effort on the agreed hourly rates or in monthly packages or packages . These are usually completed when customers assign recurring tasks or assign a large volume of orders each month.

Field of activity

VPAs support your customers in a wide variety of tasks. A distinction must be made between the areas of application in private and professional tasks. Below are examples of some of the classic tasks that VPAs can take on for clients.

Private VPA tasks

• Travel planning
• Appointment
• Errands and purchases
• Event planning and organization
• Concierge duties

Professional VPA tasks

General office or secretarial tasks

• Correspondence
• Scheduling
• Travel planning
• Research work

General commercial tasks

• Creation of templates
• Creation of presentations and documents
• Translations and corrections
• Maintenance of databases

Subject-specific tasks

• Marketing and sales measures
• Web activities ( web design , online marketing , blogs )
• Social media marketing
• Graphics and layout
• Text and content

Events and events

• Planning and organization of corporate events and events

Task structure

Despite the very extensive field of activity, VPA tasks can generally be divided into one-off and recurring tasks (routine tasks) according to their repetitive nature. One-off tasks are completed with the completion and handover of the work results. Recurring tasks, on the other hand, occur a certain number of hours a day, a week or even a month and have to be done routinely.

Customer structure

The customer structure and target group of VPA services is usually very broad. Private individuals who want to discreetly and confidently hand over everyday obligations and organizational tasks, entrepreneurs and people in managerial positions who do not want to use their valuable time for routine tasks, freelancers who need support regardless of location, sole proprietorships who have no resources for the permanent employment of an employee or companies, who need external support for a specific outsourcing project.

Use

Can be named as customer benefits

• More efficient work by concentrating on the core business
• Free time gained by submitting tasks
• Cost savings through virtual collaboration (incidental personnel costs, rental costs, travel costs)
• Flexible deployment of staff if required
• Fast support in the event of personnel bottlenecks
• An interdisciplinary contact person for various tasks
• Location-independent collaboration

Forms of virtual personal assistants

A distinction can be made here between independent VPAs and VPA services, as well as between German VPA services and VPA services carried out from Germany.

Self-employed VPAs
You work as a self-employed individual entrepreneur on your own account. Most of the work is done from your own home office . Due to limited resources , independent VPAs usually work for a small group of customers.

VPA Services
These employ a team of VPAs. Usually every customer has his own personal contact. This person either carries out the tasks or these are assigned to a VPA with the appropriate specialist knowledge. The advantage of working with VPA agencies for the client is that various specialist skills are combined in one team. There is also no need to worry about unforeseen failures, as if one VPA is absent, someone else can step in.

German VPA services
These VPA services work from Germany with a team of personal assistants. Due to the local wage levels, the hourly rates of these providers are higher than those of providers who use VPAs abroad. Here the client can usually fall back on a qualified team of specialists from various areas.

VPA services run from Germany
Some VPA services have their headquarters in Germany, but the VPAs serve customers from other countries. By outsourcing the tasks to low-wage countries , customers benefit from low hourly wages and the sometimes different time zones mean that tasks can be completed with a delay.

Butler apps
A new trend is called "butler apps". Here the VPA is assigned tasks via SMS or mobile app. The user sends his tasks to the assistant, who organizes and mediates the tasks. Thanks to scalable technologies, the people behind the service can process several hundred tasks per hour. The customer can have different contact persons.

qualification

There is still no VPA training or certification in Germany. Anyone who offers this service can call themselves VPA. As a minimum requirement, VPAs should have experience in the area of ​​office management, have great organizational talent, be capable of multitasking and be flexible, experienced in dealing with customers and work absolutely reliably, discreetly and service-oriented. The command of the German language, spoken and written, is a prerequisite for operating professionally in the German market. However, many VPA services usually only employ VPAs whose knowledge goes well beyond these minimum requirements. This enables the VPA services to cover a quite extensive field of activity and also to carry out content-related and technically demanding tasks for customers.

Professional organizations / associations

• International Virtual Assistants Association (ivaa)
• International Association of Virtual Assistants (IAVA)

literature

• Markus Albers: I'll come in later tomorrow: For more freedom in a permanent position . 1st edition, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38652-2 .
• Markus Albers: Meconomy: How we will live and work in the future - and why we have to reinvent ourselves now . epubli GmbH, Berlin 2010, ISBN 3-86931-383-8 .
• Markus Albers: How virtual personal assistants replace the secretariat . In: Wirtschaftswoche . August 28, 2009.
• Timothy Ferriss: The 4-Hour Week: More Time, More Money, More Life . Econ (March 1, 2008), ISBN 3-430-20051-2 .
• Thomas L. Friedmann: The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century . Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 3-518-45964-3 .
• Christian Fahrenbach: Time that you can buy. In: brand eins . Volume 07/2009, pp. 16-17. (PDF; 711 kB)
• Anja Dilk: Inspirations Personal Assitants . In: Lufthansa exclusive . Edition 06/2011, pp. 34–36.

Filmography

Modern servants . In: ZDF foreign journal . Contribution by Dara Hassanzadeh and Philipp Müller (editor: Robert Bachem). Sent: 4th July 2008.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ivaa .
2. ↑ IAVA ( Memento of the original dated August 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
3. ↑ Task (compulsory) .
4. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ http://gruender.wiwo.de/exklusiv-sixtyone-minutes-baut-assistenz-service-aus/
6. ↑ Anja Reumschüssel: Internet Hype Magic: Order a tiger by SMS. In: Spiegel Online . February 27, 2015, accessed June 10, 2018 .