Research Virtual Assistant

Research is important for any successful business. It reduces guesswork and guides decisions based on reality instead of conjecture. It is the lifeblood of good decisions. From customer research to competitor evaluation to leads research, looking into the state of the industry outside one’s own business is necessary in order to thrive.

Unfortunately, sometimes conducting research can be time-consuming and can lead people off on unnecessary tangents. So, while it is necessary to conduct it to understand market and competitor trends, it is sometimes left half-baked or shunted to the wayside. This is where having a research assistant can help.

A research assistant is someone who can look up important information for you, whether to support a theory, help with planned changes within the company, or for any other reason you’d need to do research activities.

Having a research assistant means no more crawling through the internet looking for one or two helpful sites in a sea of thousands. With a research assistant, you can concentrate on the big picture and have your assistant do internet research, market research, or other research tasks necessary to look for and summarize the facts and figures for you.

A research virtual assistant is someone who does online research for your business. While having a physical employee conduct research is still an option, engaging virtual assistant research services can offer the same results but at a fraction of the time and monetary cost.

Virtual research can take quite a bit of time, and a research virtual assistant can take that burden away from you, without having to go through the trappings of hiring an on-site employee. After all, these days, most research is done online anyway.

• Conducting interviews

Your research virtual assistant can conduct interviews with customers via phone or via online calling platforms like Zoom and Skype. This is a valuable data collection method they can utilize when you need in-depth answers to some of your business questions.

• Competitor research

Research virtual assistants can not only look up data on your competitors, they can also pose as potential or actual customers to key competitors in order to provide you with valuable information on how they operate.

• Summarize data

Research VAs can go through numerous web sources and combine disparate and lengthy pieces of information into one cohesive whole for you to consume. This gives you the opportunity to understand new research topics with great depth, without losing days of precious business development and big-picture thinking time.

• Attend meetings or seminars pertaining to research

There are always new research and products that help improve the efficiency of data gathering and processing in research. There are always seminars or training meetings available online to help researchers level up. Some of these are important and can give you an edge, while others may just rehash what you already know. A research virtual assistant can attend these meetings and seminars on your behalf, and filter out the unnecessary chatter so that you only spend time looking at what’s important.

• Product research

Innovation is one of the keys to a successful business. Sometimes though, it’s hard to decide whether a new idea will make for a good product or service. Research virtual assistants can help you assess the viability of new or reimagined products by looking at current similar offerings and customer opinions on them.

• Trends research

In order to stay ahead, businesses need to be well-informed of business trends and have a good idea of where their industry is going. Research virtual assistants can keep an eye out for updates and shifts in the broader market.

• Miscellaneous research

Research virtual assistants are very versatile. Apart from the tasks listed above, they can also conduct basic market research, business opportunity research, look into new avenues for marketing and advertising, find appropriate influencers for different product types, and many more.

• Organized

Research virtual assistants need to be able to gather a wide array of information and properly categorize them so that they can be understood by you and other business stakeholders.

• Communicates well

Research virtual assistants must be able to present their findings to different teams in your company. They should be able to adjust their presentations depending on the expertise level, department, and personalities of those who need to know about the topic they’ve been tasked to look into.

• Curious about the world

Researchers must be curious and open-minded. It is very important that they do not begin their research initiatives with a bias in mind, or else the conclusions they reach may become tainted or incorrect.

• Has initiative

The field of research evolves very quickly. As such, research virtual assistants must always seek to improve their instruments and techniques in order to stay efficient and relevant.

Hiring a virtual assistant can save you a lot of time and grief. You won’t need to worry about expanding office space to accommodate an additional person, utility cost, insurance cost, and other associated expenses involved in hiring a physical employee.

Getting a research virtual assistant can also give you access to a wider and more versatile pool of candidates than you would get compared to if you hired an on-site research assistant. Apart from being able to choose from a variety of talents and specialties, you can also easily choose between full-time, part-time, project-based, or long-term.

However, all these benefits also mean that looking for the perfect research virtual assistant can become an overwhelming experience. Hiring a virtual assistant company like 20four7VA can help you maximize your access to the wonderful virtual talent pool available.

20four7VA can search for and vet candidates for you, saving you from lengthy internet searches and having to deep dive into each potential hire’s resume. Once you engage 20four7VA’s services, you just wait for them to give you a list of qualified applicants, and you can go straight to interviewing them to see which one fits your needs best.

Apart from helping you find the perfect team member, 20four7VA also helps companies with onboarding and monitoring VAs. There’s no need to worry about navigating mentoring and keeping track of your VA’s KPIs, even if you’ve never had virtual staff before. 20four7VA will help ensure you get the smoothest and most efficient VA staffing experience.

Whether full-time, part-time, beginner, or expert, hiring a virtual assistant company like 20four7VA can greatly save you time and effort.