Administrative & Outsourcing: find professionals

Administrative and outsourcing covers virtual assistants, call centres and answering services, for businesses that want help with day-to-day work without hiring in-house.

Virtual assistants work remotely on tasks such as email, scheduling, data entry, research and customer follow-up. Answering services and call centres take calls for your business, during business hours or around the clock, and many also handle customer support by email or chat.

Ask how assistants are trained and supervised, where the work is done and how your customers’ information is protected, including where personal information is stored. Agree on the tasks, the hours and how you’ll hand work over before you start, and use delegated access or a password manager rather than sharing your own passwords. Ask whether calls are recorded and how long recordings are kept, and agree in writing what happens to your files and customer records when the contract ends.