Great question and Virtual Hand have been offering the virtual assistant package for 15 years now and recently morphed into a full operations team being offered for the same investment as a single hire.

For many small UK professional services firms, the decision to outsource operational support starts with a deceptively simple question:

“Should I hire a virtual assistant?”

It is a sensible question. A good VA can take administration, diary management, inboxes, CRM updates, client communication and a whole host of other tasks off your plate.

But what happens when your business needs more than one person can realistically provide?

Perhaps you need someone to manage your enquiries and follow up prospects, someone else to keep your CRM organised, someone to coordinate client onboarding, and another person with marketing or project management skills.

Suddenly, you are not really looking for a VA. You are looking for an operations function.

The difference between a single virtual assistant and a virtual operations team becomes particularly important when you view the actual business requirements.

So, which is right for your firm?

A useful way to think about the decision is this:

Choose a single VA if:

  • Your workload is relatively straightforward.
  • You have a defined list of recurring tasks.
  • You mainly need administrative or PA support.
  • You are comfortable having one primary person responsible for the work.
  • You don’t have a particularly wide range of specialist operational requirements.
  • You have a plan for cover when your VA is unavailable.

Consider an operations team if:

  • Your business has several different operational needs.
  • Enquiries or follow-ups are being missed.
  • Client onboarding needs tightening up.
  • Your CRM isn’t consistently maintained.
  • Projects require chasing and coordination.
  • Your team is already stretched.
  • You need a combination of admin, client service, marketing and operational support.
  • You don’t want the business dependent on one person.
  • You need continuity when people are away.
  • You have considered employing several people but don’t want the associated commitment and management overhead.
  • You want access to different skills without building a whole internal department.

The question isn’t really VA versus operations team

 For an established professional services firm, the more useful question might be:

“What happens if the person currently responsible for this doesn’t do it?”

If the answer is:

“I’ll have to do it myself.”

…you may have a dependency problem.

 

If the answer is:

“We’ll just leave it until they’re back.”

…you may have a continuity problem.

 

If the answer is:

“We’ll have to find someone else who knows how everything works.”

…you may have a knowledge-transfer problem.

 

An operations team is designed to address those issues by creating a more resilient support structure around the business.

At Virtual Hand, the value is that established businesses don’t necessarily need more people on the payroll. They need the right operational capacity around them. The company’s Integrated Team is designed around exactly that premise: a multi-skilled UK-based team, integrated into the business, with a dedicated team lead and the flexibility to cover a broader range of operational requirements.

Your business shouldn’t rely on one person holding everything together

There is a point in the growth of many small professional services firms where the traditional VA model starts to feel a little too small.

Not because the VA isn’t good enough.

Quite the opposite.

It’s because the business has become more complex.

You may need someone who understands your clients, someone who understands your systems, someone who is brilliant at project coordination and someone who can make sure the marketing actually happens.

Expecting one person to be all of those things can create unnecessary dependency.

And employing four or five people to cover those skills can create unnecessary overhead.

A team can sit in the middle.

You get access to multiple skills, shared knowledge, continuity and greater operational resilience — without necessarily having to create your own mini HR department.

For a growing UK professional services firm, that can be a much more sensible way to think about outsourcing.

The goal isn’t simply to have someone who takes tasks off your desk.

The goal is to build a business that keeps moving when you’re busy, when your team is stretched and when one person isn’t available.

And sometimes, that takes more than a VA. It takes a team. 

The risk-reduction argument for using freelancers

There is another reason an outsourced team can be attractive. You may not actually need to employ several people to get access to several people’s expertise.

An outsourced model can give you access to a team of independent professionals without building an internal operations department from scratch.

That can reduce the commitment associated with recruitment and employment, while allowing you to scale the support you use around your actual requirements.

Virtual Hand’s model is deliberately built around this idea: a multi-skilled team, one point of contact and one invoice, without the recruitment, payroll and HR overhead associated with building an internal team.

However, there is an important caveat for UK businesses: A team can actually be simpler to manage

At first glance, using several people sounds more complicated than having one VA. But that’s not necessarily how it works.

A well-run outsourced operations team should give you one person to deal with, rather than asking you to manage everyone individually.

That’s why Virtual Hand has a dedicated team lead as the main point of contact. The team lead coordinates the work, communicates with the client and escalates issues when necessary.

You get the capabilities of a team without necessarily having to manage a team. That’s an important distinction.

You’re outsourcing not just the tasks, but some of the coordination required to get those tasks done.

Could an operations team be the right fit?

 

Virtual Hand works with established UK businesses that have reached the point where the workload has outgrown the capacity of their existing team. Its Integrated Team provides multi-skilled operational support with a dedicated team lead, structured around the way the individual business works.

 

Explore Virtual Hand’s Integrated Team

 

If you’re not sure whether you need one VA or a team, Virtual Hand also offers individual VA matching for businesses where a single VA genuinely is the better fit.

 

Find a Virtual Assistant through Virtual Hand

 

Do get in touch for a conversation – talking it out will help with your decision and we love to help.