Comments on: Disadvantages of Outsourcing to Offshore Virtual Assistants

By: Rita Cartwright

Rita Cartwright — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:04:07 +0000

Robin, thanks for stopping by. Outsourcing is generally to any small business owner’s advantage; however, they should be more concerned with the value they receive rather than focusing on the cost. By the way, I have moved my blog to http://rjswordprocessing.com/blog. New posts are over there. Once again, thanks.

By: Robin - OutsourcedHelp

Robin - OutsourcedHelp — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:31:40 +0000

If you outsource to offshore VAs, just make sure you are outsourcing to a reliable provider who can ACTUALLY speak English. This can be a problem at times, and miscommunications or lack of proper communication can destroy your online project.

However, there are cases when outsourcing is to your advantage.

By: spinhead

spinhead — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:56:09 +0000

I think there’s a lot of confusion about the difference between hiring a virtual assistant (meaning, an individual who works as your assistant) and outsourcing to a virtual assistance company.

Yes, there are repeatable trainable scriptable tasks which can be taught to anyone with clerical/computer skills and some sense. If you can find someone who’ll work cheap, and want to invest in a long-term relationship, that’s a good thing.

But I’ll never just hand off my trainable tasks to *an organization.* I want to develop a relationship with the individual who will learn my quirks and expectations, and take personal responsibility for making me happy.

It’s not about who has an accent and who doesn’t. There’s just far too much emphasis on dollars per hour instead of long-term value.

Joel D Canfield, Business Heretic
http://BusinessHeretics.com
Author of ‘The Commonsense Virtual Assistant’

By: atul chatterjee

atul chatterjee — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:39:33 +0000

I read this spirited exchange and decided to air my views. I am not a virtual assitant.
1. For a large number of Indians English is their first language, as it is in my case, with Bengali being my mother tongue. But yes, we do speak Indian English, just as Americans speak American English, Asutralians speak Autralian English and so also the written language.

2. As for sharp differences in culture, agreed, those can be problematic.

3. Legislation is not what protects your data, it is the integrity of the person or prescribed systems within the organization. I agree this can be a disaster area and there have been instances of data stealing in India.

4. If you pay peanuts you get a monkey. If someone pays $5 per hour what does he/she expect to receive. Just look at wages in India for that sort of work.

5. As far as Internet connectivity is concerned our machines were running slow in that period. The bit you have written there smacks of lack of technological knowledge. We are talking of a failure in the backbone. India has cables to Singapore and a whole lot of satellites.
Telephone companies in the US provide the last mile connectivity.
On the whole yes, US companies would be safer outsourcing to US VA since failures in the backbone could be rerouted easily.

6. One thing I feel is that VAs in the US should go up the value chain, they should be able to handle things like Pivot charts in Excel and upgrade their work. That is one of the best ways of competing.

By: Virtual Clone

Virtual Clone — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:48:14 +0000

Thanks of the practical advice. We are a team of virtual assistants based in India. This will surely help us in our routine business..

By: Julie Cioffi-Brawley

Julie Cioffi-Brawley — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:59:17 +0000

You can certainly find many highly skilled US based virtual assistants in a wide variety of fields at the VAnetworking.com website. VAnetworking.com even has a free ebook, “Finding A VA” (http://www.vanetworking.com/find-a-virtual-assistant) that you may find helpful in your search.

By: Maneet

Maneet — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:11:46 +0000

I dont think I agree with your points here. There are scores of offshore service providers in developing countries like India who provide excellent virtual assistant services. They have highly skilled professional staff who are well versed in English and other languages and ensure optimal quality of services.

I feel while looking for VAs, one should rather look at the quality of work, their experience and expertise instead of discriminating on the basis of geographical locations.

By: Cindy Greenway

Cindy Greenway — Sun, 04 May 2008 02:51:34 +0000

Rita, I couldn’t agree with you more. Virtual Assistants take great pride in supporting their clients with building their businesses – someone who is paid $5/hour will not have that same level of interest. It discourages me when I hear of business owners who are working with offshore VAs just because of the low rates. In fact, I read a post earlier this week about someone who tried working with an offshore company and was horrified with the quality they received.

Thanks for sharing!

Cindy Greenway
Virtual Manager
http://www.HotSkillsVATraining.com
http://www.GrowYourVABiz.com
http://www.MultipleStreamsTeam.com

I caution Virtual Assistants from lowering their rates too much when they start out. You may attract some work, however it makes it difficult to raise your rates once you are established with those clients – they may not value your skill and expertise at the higher rate since they have been receiving it at the lower one.

I’ve seen this happen with several virtual assistants so thought I would share.

Thanks!

Cindy Greenway
Virtual Manager
http://www.HotSkillsVATraining.com
http://www.GrowYourVABiz.com
http://www.MultipleStreamsTeam.com

Learn 11 Continuously-In-Demand ‘Hot’ Virtual Skills and Watch Your Business Explode…

New Class Starting June 3, 2008 http://www.HotSkillsVATraining.com

By: chickenstar

chickenstar — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:29:51 +0000

sad to say that there are many disadvantages for those people who are work for this offshore in the field of outsourcing. but as i have researched there are companies which resolved these problems assuring their clients to have the maximum benefits regarding to there expectations as a client hiring an offshore agent. the companies state the advantage of having an agent from them this includes the efficiency of there communication skills. i had read this at there site www . agentsofvalue . com