Administrative & Outsourcing: find professionals

Administrative and outsourcing covers virtual assistants, call centers 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 centers 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. 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. Agree what happens to your files, recordings and customer lists when the contract ends, and ask whether calls are recorded and who can listen to them.