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Keep Your VA and Client Relationship Strong By Following Up
If you have a virtual assistant, you know the value of hiring a VA for your business. You might also have realized the importance of communication between you and your assistant.
Follow-ups are an important part of maintaining good communication with your virtual assistant and should be scheduled regularly, so they become a routine and comfortable part of your interaction. Follow-ups provide an opportunity for clients and VAs to share feedback, discuss goals and, and develop clear strategies for future success.
Schedule Follow-Ups with Your Virtual Assistant
A great way to avoid problems with your virtual assistant is to establish clear communication habits, and build trust is to make sure everyone is on the same page at all times. This can be achieved by scheduling regular follow-ups between you and your VA. It’s a good idea to schedule follow-ups frequently, especially:
- After a work-related training or course
- Upon completion of a large assignment or project
- End of the quarter
- End of the year
Reasons for Providing Follow-Ups
Providing regular follow-ups is a good idea when managing your remote employees. Having follow-up appointments with your virtual assistant builds trust, fosters client/VA understanding, and, most importantly, helps maintain and promote good performance. As an employer, you might think of yourself more as a coach and mentor to your employees than as someone who manages them. Making sure your virtual assistant feels heard and that they receive the proper support and guidance will motivate them to improve.
During follow-ups, you and your virtual assistant can discuss the elements of a project or task that you and your VA think went well, as well as the parts that went poorly. It’s also a great way for you and your VA to communicate your individual thoughts about what was learned and how best to move forward and tackle future projects most effectively.
Reinforce Employee Performance
Two major reasons for providing follow-ups are to maintain good performance and improve poor performance. This can be achieved through regular follow-ups in several ways:
Post-Project Follow-Ups
Providing feedback on a recently completed task or project reinforces good performance and lets your virtual assistant know what they did well and what you’d like to see more of. This is also an opportunity for your VA to provide you with feedback of their own about how they thought a project went, what challenged them, and how they think they performed.
Post-Training Follow-Ups
If you assign your virtual assistant a training or special course to complete, it’s a good idea to schedule a follow-up appointment afterward. This gives you a chance to hear what your VA learned and what they think of their newly acquired skills or knowledge. Together you can discuss how those new skills can be implemented in real-life and what support or resources your VA might need from you to do so.
Improving Performance
Follow-ups provide a great place to help improve performance and clarify goals and expectations. If you aren’t happy with the way a project was handled, initiating a follow-up soon after can help you reach an understanding with your virtual admin assistant and maintain a productive relationship. During the post-project follow-up, you can reiterate the specific project goals and how you think they were or were not met. Allowing your VA to share their thoughts here is also important. If you aren’t happy with how a project went, it’s a good idea to hear about it from your VA’s perspective. You can learn about areas they struggle with and help eliminate obstacles for improved performance in the future.
Building solid communication habits between you and your VA is even more critical than with your face-to-face employees. Working short follow-up sessions into your schedule is a great way to ensure expectations and needs are met and understood by both client and VA.
Why Choose Virtual Latinos
When you’re ready to find a virtual assistant for your business, Virtual Latinos is the place to look. Virtual Latinos offers the top virtual assistant services on the market. Our highly trained marketing specialists work remotely from a variety of Central and South American countries, including Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, and more. Our virtual assistants work in American timezones , and all of the top virtual assistants who work for Virtual Latinos are Spanish speaking virtual assistants, and are bilingual. When you’re ready to jump-start your productivity and success by hiring your own VA, contact Virtual Latinos and let us get started finding your perfect match.
