The concept of outsourcing is not a novel trend. However, the issue of privacy remains unresolved. For businessmen hiring virtual assistants, giving them critical information, such as log in access to a website CMS, Aweber email marketing CMS, Cpanel hosting access, FTP access and Social Media Access, is needed for full task performance. On the other hand, such practice poses great risk especially when delegating tasks offshore. Outsourcing companies are not responsible for supervising home based VA’s and most of the agreements documented are between the employer and the home based virtual assistant.
Given this, is there still a point working with virtual assistants? Can businessmen trust them 100%? The answer is a big YES!
Securing your Online Information while Working with Virtual Assistant
- Find your virtual online assistant only with a reliable offshore staffing company. There are many virtual assistants you can hire online through outsourcing websites such as VSF, oDesk.com, onlinejobsph, and eLance.com. Though many are competent enough to do your projects, you can never be certain about their credibility. Entrusting the recruitment process of professional virtual assistants to the VSF company may benefit you more.
Virtual Staff Finder is composed of a recruitment team who evaluates applicants’ credibility through skill and psychological exams. To assess technical skills, the VSF team consults their competent in-house web developers, content writers, SEO specialists, and graphic designers to check how efficient their skills are.
- Secure a virtual assistant contract. A contract is a binding agreement between you and your VA. It is necessary that your virtual personal assistant agrees with your conditions, which include privacy and property protection. Download your sample VA contract here.
- Remember to keep security questions and features, ALWAYS! When signing up for a CMS application (WordPress, Business Catalyst and OS Commerce) and hosting account (blue host, in-motion, Hostgator – VSF recommended hosting companies), make sure that you have all the details for password change and retrieval. Different tools for online businesses have customized security features such as CMS application where the owner can add webmaster account for the new offshore VA. You can follow these tips to provide your business further online security:
- Entrust only your FTP account and not the entire CPanel information. If you really need to provide full CPanel access, make sure that you remember security questions for password retrieval.
- Payment systems like PayPal should remain secure especially if you need to integrate them to your website. Instead of giving full access to your PayPal account, go to your PayPal dashboard and fill out the scripts which the web developer VA can embed in your products and services page.
- It is advisable to use different accounts for your online transactions. In case there are hosting problems or affiliate bugs, be ready to share the last 4 digits of your credit card number and authorize your VA to act on your behalf in communicating with customer service.
- If you want to have a full background checking, you may require the VA’s to produce a photocopy of their National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Clearance, certified true copy of their Transcript of Records from their university, and employment certificate from their previous employers.
It’s not impossible to trust an online assistant. All you need to do is to consider all the necessary options to protect whatever information you have.
For a trustworthy source of virtual assistants, contact us now!