Virtual Assistant in Nigeria

To avoid the expense of hiring employees to handle both secretarial and clerical tasks, many business owners and professionals are now turning to contract virtual assistants to make their lives easier. If you have any relevant skills, you can work as a virtual assistant in Nigeria. Whether it’s a digital skill or an online skill. Recently, A survey had been recently conducted of virtual assistant service companies in Nigeria and found Delonapps to be one of the leading virtual assistant providers in Nigeria, Delonapps is proud to have a team of professional virtual assistants with years of board-level experience and expertise. Delonapps provides executive, secretarial, and administrative support to companies, professionals, and individuals in all industries. Delonapps helps you set up a virtual assistant model for your company and keep it running by encouraging and supporting your business operations and promoting best practices in the virtual assistant industry.
One of the jobs that you can do from home without much certification or experience is that of a virtual assistant. Although the job requires some skills and a good internet connection to complete assigned tasks, it is a lucrative job providing virtual assistance as a service to businesses. Although virtual assistant jobs are not widely available, you should be aware that they do pay well for their internet-based work. If you want to learn what it takes to become a virtual assistant in Nigeria, this article will walk you through the steps.

WHO IS A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT?
A virtual assistant is someone who works virtually on the internet to assist others in achieving their own business objectives. They are the employees who work from home or anywhere and do not all fit into one category. They are typically self-employed and may work for multiple employers at the same time. However, as a virtual assistant in Nigeria, you assist clients with general administrative tasks such as managing emails, planning calendars, and assisting with tasks that are difficult for them to complete on their own. Virtual assistants are also artificial intelligence-based systems that assist with a variety of tasks. Delonapps recognizes that each business is unique in its model and operation, as well as in its demands and priorities. That is, they design their services to be flexible and tailored to a client’s specific requirements. They quickly learn about you and your company and offer appropriate solutions. With Delonapps as your dedicated virtual personal assistant, you can focus on growing your business while ‘Delonapps handles your business paperwork, support, and administration, giving you more time to attend to other important matters.
Services Offered by Virtual Assistant
Virtual assistants are simply multi-skilled individuals whose services vary greatly. To be honest, these workers can provide hundreds of different services. As a virtual assistant in Nigeria, you will be responsible for the following duties:
1.Bookkeeping:
This is most likely the task that entrepreneurs put off the most. That’s because it’s not an easy task, especially for someone who prefers to focus on the strategic and creative aspects of business rather than numbers on a screen. It is an essential task because it entails recording bills, invoices, payments, and keeping track of a company’s overall financial well-being.
As a bookkeeping Virtual Assistant, you can do the following:
• Creating invoices and following up in the event of nonpayment.
• ensuring that bills are paid on time.
• Making refunds.
• Balance sheet preparation; employee and contractor payment.
• Reconciliation of bank and credit card statements
• Assist with the preparation of your quarterly or annual taxes.
• Keeping financial information in the software
2.Providing customer service via email:
Why should a business owner bother with email customer service when phone calls are the norm? Because online entrepreneurs frequently sell products to customers all over the world, email is the most common method of communication with those customers. Furthermore, 48 percent of consumers prefer a personalized transaction, which involves interacting with a real person rather than an automated support system.
Your responsibilities as a customer service Virtual Assistant are as follows:
• Respond to common customer service inquiries; troubleshoot customer problems; handle customer complaints; and issue refunds
• Proactively contact customers to ascertain their satisfaction with your client’s product.
• Inform your client about the most common product complaints.
• Recognize and report patterns in customer dissatisfaction to the product team.
3.Travel Assistant
If your client travels frequently for work or pleasure, they may require the services of a personal travel assistant to relieve them of the burden of logistics. Clients in this category include conference speakers and book authors.
You will do the following as a travel assistant:
• Investigate the best options for airfare and other expenses such as baggage.
• Look into the best car rental and hotel accommodations.
• Compile travel schedules for specific itineraries as needed for budgeting.
• Make reservations and negotiate fares with airlines and hotels.
• Plan for airport pickup and drop-off.
• Make backup plans in case of changes or cancellations.
• In the event of a cancellation, tickets should be reissued or refunded.
• Find meeting places for your clients in their destination city.
• Purchase travel insurance.
• Research visa requirements.
4.Data Entry & Managing Databases
You might believe that today, database management can be handled entirely by software. Fortunately, the robots are not yet ready to take over this job. If you provide this VA service, look for clients who generate many leads each month, such as small business owners in insurance, real estate, sales, fundraising, or anyone who works with patients. Many businesspeople lack the knowledge, desire, or time to devise a system for organizing their contacts. It will be your responsibility as a VA to ensure that the information in the database is up to date, relevant, properly organized, and easy to analyze.
You must do the following:
• Define and configure categories and rules; Update the database on a regular basis.
• Maintain the database; create data spreadsheets and graphs.
• Make reports for your customers.
• In your absence, instruct your clients on how to use the database.
5.Scheduling and Calendar Management
Maintaining an accurate schedule is critical for clients whose business models rely heavily on face-to-face meetings (such as real estate agents or business coaches). Keeping track of 20-30 weekly meetings while also looking for new clients and promoting your business is a difficult task. A missed appointment can cost a company’s reputation and valuable leads. On the other hand, if a client fails to show up for their appointment, the company loses money and time. So, it’s in everyone’s best interest to hire a virtual assistant to ensure the calendar runs smoothly. Here’s what calendar management services entail:
Setting up scheduling platforms (such as Calendly, Need to Meet, Boomerang, iCal, Google calendar);
• Scheduling appointments and meetings.
• Sending reminders to contacts.
• Sending reminders to your clients.
• Rescheduling missed appointments.
• Scheduling recurring and one-time events.
• Confirming availability.
6.Customer Service
Hiring a virtual assistant for customer service is especially important if dealing with customers is taking up a significant amount of time that a business owner could be using to create products or services or even strategize for their business.
Here are some examples of customer service tasks that a Virtual Assistant can handle:
• New client onboarding
• Responding to recurring customer inquiries (for example, by creating canned email responses or a FAQ page with answers to the most frequently asked questions)
• Checking in on long-term clients on a regular basis (you need to make sure they’re still happy with what they’re getting)
• Handling customer complaints and refund requests
7. Blog management and Content Creation
You may believe that there isn’t much to do when you’re blogging. You just type your thoughts and hit the publish button, right? That could be the case if you blog as a hobby. However, when blogging becomes a business, there are many moving parts to keep track of behind the scenes. A good manager can not only assist with the launch of a new blog but can also contribute to long-term growth.
A Virtual Assistant who manages blogs would also oversee:
• Post uploading and formatting
• Posting inbound and outbound links.
• Obtaining images
• Creating graphics and inserting them into posts.
• Optimizing the post’s SEO – it’s pointless to create great content if no one can find it.
• Including opt-ins and lead magnets in blog posts
8. Optimizing LinkedIn Profiles
LinkedIn had a slow start, but it is now a thriving social networking platform; business owners frequently use LinkedIn to increase the efficiency of their business.
You can provide the following as part of linked in optimizing virtual assistant:
• Create SEO-friendly profiles
• Creating compelling career summaries
• Participating in niche-related groups
• Creating and posting LinkedIn posts
• Making comments on posts shared by LinkedIn connections
9. Optimizing Website SEO
As an SEO Virtual Assistant, you are responsible for ensuring that your client’s online content is optimized in accordance with current SEO best practices. You may need to create and implement an SEO strategy from scratch for clients who have little knowledge of digital marketing. Other clients may be following outdated SEO advice, such as keyword stuffing, which is doing more harm than good to their websites.
As an SEO virtual assistant keeping up to date with search engines best practices, you can help your client to:
• Investigate the best keywords for their industry.
• Investigate the competition to see what keywords they are ranking for in searches.
• Improve website content, such as meta descriptions and headlines.
• Image optimization for SEO
• Improve your SEO for social media platforms.
• Increase the website’s loading time.
• Conduct an SEO analysis on a regular basis to determine what is working and what needs to be tweaked further.
How to become a virtual assistant
If you want to start a career or have a side job as a virtual assistant, follow these steps to get started.
1. Identify your skills
The first step in becoming a virtual assistant is determining your strongest skills. A resume that emphasizes your administrative skills will demonstrate to employers that you are qualified for the job, even if you have little experience. The most common skills required of a virtual assistant are as follows:
• Organizational and Time management: Virtual assistants must be adept at organizing their own tasks and managing their own time in addition to assisting clients in managing their time by overseeing calendars, schedules, and appointments and performing organizational tasks for clients. As a virtual assistant, you may accept jobs from multiple clients at the same time and be expected to complete them all effectively and on time.
• Communication: Virtual assistants must have excellent verbal and written communication skills to contact clients, receive client assignments, and perform a variety of duties such as customer service and record keeping.
• Editorial Skills: Because it is critical to submit written work free of typos and grammatical errors, virtual assistants should have strong editorial skills. They should also be capable of conducting light research and typing documents.
• Computer Proficiency: Virtual assistants carry out their duties using a variety of computer programs. They must be familiar with the internet, email inbox management, and cloud-based communication tools such as file sharing, password managers, and teleconferencing. It is also necessary to be able to create documents, files, and spreadsheets.

2. Determine the services you will provide and your pricing structure
You can better target potential clients and earn jobs if you know what tasks you can and are willing to perform ahead of time. You should determine your fees in addition to identifying your services. Some virtual assistants charge hourly, daily, or weekly rates, whereas others are paid by the task.

3. Obtain any required equipment
Choosing the services, you’ll provide will also help you decide what kind of equipment you’ll need to provide those services. Some virtual assistants may only need a laptop and a cell phone but depending on the nature of your work and the number of tasks you accept, you may require additional computers, monitors, or phones. A headset, dedicated landlines, and a machine for printing, copying, and scanning are all common pieces of equipment for a virtual assistant. Every virtual assistant requires a stable internet connection.

4. Search for jobs
Begin your virtual assistant career by obtaining clients. Accepting small, low-paying jobs may be necessary at first to gain experience and positive feedback. You can also look for job openings through your professional network or search job listings online.

5. Build a portfolio
As you gain virtual assistant experience, solicit feedback from your clients and compile a portfolio of customer reviews and examples of your work. By showcasing your skills, creating this portfolio will most likely help you gain more clients and better-paying jobs.

6. Market yourself
Your ability to sell your services is critical to your success as a virtual assistant. Make yourself visible online by using social media and professional profiles. You can create your own website to show potential clients your portfolio and skills. Focus on developing relationships and networking as you continue to gain employment.

7. Prepare all necessary paperwork
Before you fully launch your company and begin accepting clients, you should prepare the necessary documentation. Here, you must settle all legal and monetary aspects of this work, as well as complete all important administrative tasks.
This documentation includes obtaining all licenses required by your state and government. You should also have a client contract agreement document.
8. Consider Specializing
By focusing on a specific market, virtual assistants can increase their pay rate and client retention. Consider learning a new skill and marketing yourself as an expert in it. Email marketing, customer service, social media management, and website design are all possible areas of specialization.