Administrative Support Specialist

Being a business owner can be challenging, but it’s also very rewarding. There are so many things to think about and keep track of, from sales and marketing to bookkeeping and human resources. Keeping your business running smoothly requires a lot of time and effort. That’s where an administrative support specialist can help you!

An administrative support specialist or administrative support assistant can help you manage all the day-to-day tasks that are essential to running a successful business. They can assist with various office duties, such as filing documents and responding to emails. In some cases, the admin support specialist can also organize meeting agendas and assist with travel arrangements.

Basically, the admin support specialist’s responsibilities are all about keeping the business running smoothly so that business owners have more time to focus on what they do best — growing their business.

While you might already know the basics of what most administrative support specialists do, you might not have an idea of all the specific tasks and duties you can assign to them. If you’re wondering what an admin support specialist can do for you, this comprehensive list of admin support duties and responsibilities might help.

Routine Administrative Tasks

Clerical tasks such as data entry are the most common tasks assigned to administrative support specialists. They also perform many receptionist and back-office duties such as scheduling meetings or setting appointments, screening incoming calls, routing calls to various departments, arranging travel arrangements and travel authorizations for business trips, etc. These tasks might not be as exciting as marketing or sales initiatives, but it’s still important that they get done.

Non-Routine Administrative Tasks

Depending on their skills and experience level, administrative assistants can also handle more complex duties such as finding and evaluating information for reports or presentations, creating sales figures and graphs, and writing correspondence letters and other business documents.

Office Management

An administrative support specialist also takes care of the day-to-day tasks related to office management, including filing documents, setting up conference rooms or meeting spaces for meetings, organizing mail logs, tracking supplies, filing business documents, ordering office equipment, updating databases and spreadsheets, coordinating events such as seminars and other work-related events, and so on.

Basic Marketing or Sales-Related Tasks

Believe it or not, administrative assistants can also assist with marketing and sales initiatives. They can help generate new leads by identifying possible clients based on the business owner’s goals and objectives. They can also help with data analysis, presentations, strategies for sales growth, customer relationship management (CRM), etc.

Omnichannel Support

Today’s customers have high expectations when it comes to customer service. This means that you need to offer a wide range of options for your customer to reach you. Administrative support specialists can help you monitor and support your customers in multiple channels. They can also answer phone calls, emails, chat messages, help desk support tickets, and other support channels.

Basic Bookkeeping and Accounting Tasks

Your administrative support specialist can help you manage your bookkeeping tasks such as creating invoices, tracking outgoing payments, performing bank reconciliations, managing record-keeping requirements for payroll purposes, preparing journal entries to balance accounts, etc. They might also handle any basic accounting tasks like reconciling vendor statements, preparing trial balance reports, and reconciling accounts.

Because many of the tasks that an administrative support specialist does can be done online, more companies are opting for an outsourced offshore administrative support virtual assistant (VA) instead of an administrative specialist that reports to the office.

An administrative support virtual assistant is an administrative support specialist that works entirely remotely. They offer the same admin support services as an in-house administrative support specialist but flexibly and at a lower cost than hiring local administrative support staff. This means you can access their abilities and expertise from anywhere in the world.

For many of the tasks that administrative support specialists perform, specific knowledge and skills aren’t very important. However, you do need to assess your requirements before hiring a virtual assistant to ensure that they have the knowledge and skills required for the job. Here are some general skills you should expect from an average administrative support specialist or virtual assistant.

Organizational Skills

An administrative support specialist needs to have exceptional organizational and time management skills because they must juggle a wide range of tasks. They also often have to organize schedules and documents for other staff and other departments as well. An administrative support specialist needs to be able to manage their time well and plan their day efficiently so they can accomplish all of their tasks on time.

Multitasking Skills

Because administrative support specialists need to handle multiple responsibilities simultaneously, they need strong multitasking abilities. They should also have excellent problem-solving skills and project management skills so they can resolve issues and make sure all of their tasks are completed on time.

Basic Word and Spreadsheet Processing Skills

Administrative assistants typically use a range of office-related software like word processing applications, spreadsheets, and presentation tools to help them with various tasks. Most of the administrative support virtual assistant positions require proficiency in using the apps you typically use in the office, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint or Google Docs, Sheets, and Presentations.

People Skills

An administrative support specialist is the face of your business, and this means that they need to be skilled in dealing with people and managing client interactions. They can interact across departments and multiple time zones. That’s why customer service and interpersonal skills are required — both written and verbal communication skills as well as problem-solving abilities.

Language or Communication Skills

One of the most important requirements for an administrative support specialist is good communication skills. Being able to communicate well in the business context means that they’ll be able to understand the needs of others and accurately convey information both verbally and in writing. It doesn’t matter if they can manage an entire team — if they don’t have good communication and language skills, they can create many problems for themselves and others around them.

A few more tips for hiring an administrative support virtual assistant: check out their qualifications, experience, portfolios, social media profiles, and other online platforms they use to promote themselves.

Keep a lookout for red flags—make sure you don’t hire someone who claims to be an expert in every single task you need doing. You should also make sure that they do not misrepresent their services and offer quality work guarantees.

When making a hiring decision, always look at the bigger picture—do they align with your organizational goals? Do they fit into the company culture? Do they have the experience that you need? Do they understand what you’re trying to accomplish and why?

Remember that every company has its unique requirements. If a virtual assistant isn’t a good fit for your current needs, it doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t be willing to take on another role or work with you in a different capacity at a later time.

There are many ways to hire an administrative support VA: you can hire directly from online forums or Facebook groups, post a job and hire from freelance and VA job boards, or work with a reputable virtual staffing agency. If you’re looking for the least stressful way to hire, a virtual assistant staffing service is definitely the way to go.

At 20four7VA, we work closely with our clients to find the perfect administrative support specialist for their team. The first step is to create a detailed job description to filter out unqualified candidates. Then, it would be best if you interviewed the applicants to make sure that their personality also fits with your company culture.

Ready to hire an administrative support specialist VA? Book a call with one of our Client Success Specialists now to get a free quote!