Four Virtual Assistants Tackle Real-World Business Tasks

PC World — A new breed of services called virtual assistants let you outsource just about any task overseas, as long as the work can be done with a computer and a telephone.

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Virtual assistants are contract workers, generally paid by the hour, who perform menial tasks. The more mundane the job, the better--finding flights and hotels, paying bills, or buying birthday gifts for relatives you'd rather pretend you didn't exist. Think of virtual assistants as old-school secretaries, except that they can't drop off and retrieve your dry cleaning or take your vehicle to the car wash because they live 7000 miles away.

That's a shame, because following our tests of four such services, we'd feel a lot more comfortable handing over our dirty clothes to these operations than entrusting critical business tasks to them.

Focusing on how a small business might use virtual assistants, we gave each service the same three tasks in succession (so that they could focus on one task at a time), of varying levels of complexity.

1. The Spreadsheet: First, we asked the virtual assistants to take a complicated Excel spreadsheet and convert it to Google Docs, retaining as much of the original formatting as possible. We also asked them to create a new Google account that would own the file, and to share the file with two other, existing Google accounts.

2. The Business Trip: Next, we asked for a two-day proposed itinerary for a business trip to Tokyo. We specified a traveling party of four people requiring hotel rooms, sightseeing options during downtime, and lunch and dinner ideas with at least some English-speaking staff and--the kicker--at least one gluten-free dining option because one of the four travelers suffered from celiac disease.

3. The Website: Finally, we asked for research into e-commerce Web hosting options for an existing website, with particular attention to the costs involved. We said that we were especially interested in something that could build on a WordPress site, though we would listen to other ideas if the price was right.

GetFriday

Pricing: Plans vary; overages and weekend surcharges apply; seven-day free trial to start.

Total amount spent: $36.80 for 2 hours, 50 minutes ($13 per hour)

GetFriday was the first outfit we approached--and the slowest at getting its work to us. Promptness definitely wasn't GetFriday's strong suit; and with minor exceptions, its results were middling.

Service setup was long, slow, and involved, requiring telephone verification, a faxed contract, and days of waiting for completion of the various preliminaries. After that, we received multiple telephone calls from the India-based company--first from our primary contact, Snehil, and then from our designated assistant, Alex. Copious email follow-ups ensued, including one with a 30-page user manual attached.

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