Just like everyone else, Filipino virtual assistants have various skill sets and experiences. There are factors, however, that make them particularly good at certain tasks like the following:
Building a great relationship with your customers is essential in any business. The thing is, answering phones and email inquiries can literally take the whole day.
The solution?
Outsource it to a remote assistant.
The Philippines is home to a billion-dollar BPO industry that employs about 1.3 million folks. If your VA has previous work experience in that field, chances are they've been trained to:
These customer service skills aren’t limited to phone calls, either. Your virtual assistant can also help you respond to customer emails, follow up on critical reviews, answer social media inquiries, and reach out to loyal customers.
Great customer service leads to higher retention rates and revenue. In fact, 67% of customers would pay extra just to get a good buying experience. If you feel like you’re falling behind in the customer service department, outsourcing this task to a Filipino VA might be a good option.
Build a database of customer service templates and scripts that your VA can refer to when answering questions.
A Filipino remote executive assistant can also help you with day-to-day tasks like:
By taking out these chores from your plate, you'd be able to free up more time to focus on things that need your specific attention, like growing your business, meeting with stakeholders, or taking a well-deserved break with your family.
Many CEOs and business owners — including our own — use the help of Filipino executive assistants to get more stuff done.
Some founders even take this type of delegation to the next level.
One of our clients recently hired an executive assistant to help them draft real estate contracts, talk to clients, and proofread pertinent documents.
This goes to show that as long as you have a clear delegation process, you’d be able to efficiently outsource more jobs to your assistant and buy back your time.
Did you know that the Philippines is home to a thriving video and animation market?
Major media companies like Walt Disney, Dreamworks, Universal Studios, and Warner Brothers have been outsourcing animation work to the Philippines since the early 90s — mostly because of the country's affordable labor costs and familiarity with Western culture.
Today, demand continues to grow as more folks outsource visual media work to the country. If you need to create videos regularly, you can tap world-class Filipino animators and video editors.
Filipino graphic designers are also some of the best in the industry.
They're not only good at creating pretty designs — most of them know how to produce assets that can have a positive impact on your business.
Terence Eduarte, a creative director for a major advertising agency in the country, mentions in an interview that "a lot of Filipino designers and illustrators are now getting recognized internationally." Take advantage of this by hiring a Filipino multimedia designer or editor today.
Cut back on revisions and help your creative team produce consistent results by putting together a brand guide.
Managing cash flow, filing taxes, running payroll, and fielding unexpected expenses — these are not your favorite things. The upside is you can hire a virtual assistant to do it for you.
Filipino accountants and bookkeepers are some of the best and most experienced in Asia. The country has been practicing the profession for almost 100 years and runs a very competitive accountancy curriculum. It’s so competitive that only 11% of enrollees graduate each year.
This level of training — on top of experience, great English communication skills, and a knack for the latest accounting tools — make Filipino assistants perfect for your bookkeeping needs.
Bless, one of the accountants we hired for a client, is the best example of this.
She had 14 years of financial experience under her belt and worked as a senior finance executive in Singapore before getting scouted by Shepherd.
Today, she helps our client process payments, create financial reports, and validate vendor bills for only $1,500 a month, full-time. This is 22% more than what accountants in the Philippines make on average, and about 79% less than what you’d pay for a CPA in the States.
With their natural command of the English language, Filipino writers are also a great choice if you want to outsource content writing.
As we’ve mentioned earlier, content writers from the Philippines simply get Western culture, so they'll be able to write content that's not only grammatically correct but also relatable, natural, and easy to read.
Having an in-house team of writers allows you to consistently produce blog content that can help you drive organic traffic to your website, reduce paid traffic costs, and capture qualified leads.
If you're a founder who hasn't updated their blog in ages, having a ghostwriter can help you publish those thought leadership ideas that have been stuck on the backburner, too.
Effective content marketing is all about playing the long game. It won't give you instant results, but if you hire experts like Filipino content writers to execute your strategy, you'll be able to reap its benefits for years to come.
Streamline your writing process by creating briefs for your writers. A writing brief can include the subtopics that the article should discuss, ideal calls to action (CTAs), and keywords you wanna rank for. This speeds up content production and helps you scale faster.
If you simply don't have time to show up on social media, hire a Filipino virtual assistant to help you out instead. You can delegate tasks like:
If you want to take things up a notch, you can also hire someone with a background in social media content strategy to help you increase your following, reach more people, and drive engagements.
Filipinos are avid social media users themselves, spending an average of 4 hours a day on social platforms. If you're going to hire someone to run your social media channels, make sure it’s a Filipino virtual assistant.
Tools like client relationship management (CRM) systems need raw information and data sets to work.
The challenge is finding the time to manually key in the information.
Enter: a data entry associate.
We recently found a data entry associate for one of our clients to help them complete the following tasks:
Delegating clerical tasks like data entry saves you a lot of energy and allows you to maximize marketing automation software at the same time.
Aside from pure data entry, you can also hire a virtual assistant from the Philippines to help you transcribe podcast episodes, clean up databases, or type out documents and reports.
Digital marketing assistants usually help business owners with various paid advertising tasks like:
These efforts help you reach a wide audience fast, so they’re great if you’re still building awareness around your business. Paired with organic marketing strategies, these paid campaigns can help you build a steady stream of leads — and eventually, paying customers.
Our client, who's in the business of helping B2B companies generate more leads through ad campaigns, recently hired a digital marketing assistant through Shepherd.
You can also outsource other digital marketing tasks like creating funnels and setting up landing pages to your assistant.
As your business grows, you'll need to focus more on high-level things and leave the nitty-gritty to project managers.
Project managers oversee the execution and completion of projects. They take ownership of these projects, create timelines, run point with different team members, monitor resources, and essentially make sure that things get done in time.
You'll only need to check in with them at least once a week to monitor the progress of the project and see if there are any bottlenecks.
Filipino virtual assistants are savvy in project management and team communication software like Asana, Basecamp, Trello, Notion, and Slack. Their love for clear communication and feedback makes them a true asset to any team.
If you find yourself doing too many things at the same time, maybe it's time to hire a Filipino project manager to help you out.
Here's a common misconception about outsourcing work to the Philippines: you can only delegate simple, menial tasks.
That can't be farther from the truth — you can actually outsource a bunch of leadership roles to Filipino virtual assistants, including operations management.
As the name suggests, an operations manager oversees your daily business operations. If you've got several departments — or heck, are running different businesses — hiring an operations manager is a great solution to help you buy back your time.
This fosters talent within your organization and, in the long run, helps you retain team members. Filipino operations managers are competitive yet empathetic leaders, making them perfect for this role.
If you’re not sure about what to delegate yet, that’s okay. Outsourcing work to other folks can be tricky, especially if it’s your first time working with a remote team.
Here are some tips to help you determine the type of tasks you should delegate:
Learn more about delegation best practices through our free course, The Delegation Leap.
Now that you have an idea of the remote jobs you can outsource to a Filipino team, the next challenge is to attract and retain good talent. Here’s what you can do:
Most people think that Filipino virtual assistants are only good at stuff like customer service and data entry. They’re not wrong — but they’re not 100% right, either.
The truth is you can delegate a bunch of tasks to VAs from the Philippines. They’re highly skilled and talented in a lot of fields, including top management.
Hiring remote Filipino staff on your team helps you free up time and scale your business to even greater heights.
There are two types of work that should be outsourced. First, you should outsource work that does not need your specific attention or expertise. Second, you should delegate work that you can’t automate. Hiring assistants to help you carry out these tasks will save you a lot of time and energy.
Businesses can outsource a wide range of tasks to the Philippines. The most common remote jobs outsourced to Filipino virtual assistants are:
Contrary to popular belief, you can also outsource leadership tasks like project management and operations management to Filipino VAs.
Filipino virtual assistants are highly skilled in many tasks. They can also communicate well in English, have great work ethic, and are more affordable than local counterparts. To learn more about working with Filipinos, check out this post.
We'll find you amazing remote employees in the Philippines.
