Short answer: We don’t have one. Long answer: We do not offer a free trial.
It is important that we know who you are, exactly what you need support with and what’s important to you before we start working with you and for you to understand exactly what to expect from working with a Private Office Virtual Assistant (POVA). You’ll speak with a member of our team; someone who understand the value that a POVA can offer.
We want to understand exactly who you are, what you need help with and check we’re the the right service for you - On average, a consultation call takes just 20 minutes and then we aim to send you a proposal within 24 hours.
Your new POVA will be working closely with you, so we think it’s important you have a chance to connect and check that you are working with the perfect person for you and your business, before you create an account with us. These “speedy hello’s” last as little as 5 minutes.
We can help you decide this during a consultation call, however, we recommend working on the basis that there are approximately 20 working days in a month. So if you think 2 hours per day is enough, b that’s 2 hours x 20 days = 40 hours per month. We understand it’s difficult to be exact so unused hours will roll over and if you need any extra time each month, we will simply bill you for this. You can also switch plans at any time! Our pricing structure is designed to flex to your needs.
No.Following your consultation call, you’ll receive a detailed recommendation which outlines the skills and experience of the POVA.
We do not offer in-person sales meetings or consultations unfortunately.
Most clients prefer to use a combination of email and phone calls to work with their POVA. It is completely up to you and your VA.
We will let you know, we’ll make sure you are aware when your POVA plan ’s to be away. We will arrange cover for you. If you are in agreement with this cover choice your regular POVA will provide a full handover to the second POVA. The cover POVA may then provide a handover back to your usual VA when they return.
We do not have in person meetings.
We do not have in person POVA coverage.
A virtual assistant (typically abbreviated to VA), also called a virtual office assistant) provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients remotely from a home office. Common modes of communication and data delivery include the Internet, e–mail and phone’call conferences.
Our POVAs come from a wide range of professional backgrounds. All are native English speakers and work across the UK.
Trything and that includes you! Our Virtual Assistants have spent their entire careers supporting business owners and senior professionals, meaning they have developed a skill set which you would be hard pushed to compete with. It would be much more efficient for you to focus on what you are great at (and enjoy!) – anything from doing billable work for clients through to sales meetings - and leave a dedicated VA to take care of the administrative tasks that you perhaps don’t excel in doing. It also makes a lot of financial sense! Remember, unlike an employee you pay regardless of the output they really generate, we’ll only ever bill you for time spent working on tasks (to the exact minute!). That means no money spent paying for someone to stand chatting at the office watercooler, having endless cigarette breaks or always running late. Oh, and you also don’t need to worry about National Insurance payments, pensions, holiday cover, sickness payments, training, performance reviews, desk space, laptops, payroll... and the long list of other tasks and costs generated by hiring internally. Hiring a Virtual Assistant is efficient, effective and enjoyable!
Though we don’t set specific hours or schedules, as we operate a service supporting small businesses, our VAs generally work standard UK office hours, Monday to Friday. They will always work to ensure you are supported. If you need a VA available outside of standard office hours (i.e. evenings and weekends) please let us know and we’ll see if we can accommodate this.
All of our VAs are native English speakers, living and working here in the UK.
Our POVAs complete a very extensive application form, which includes uploading their CV, submitting a professional LinkedIn profile and providing strong references.
We also carry out a background and identity check and we secure at least 2 references from previous employers or clients.
This rarely happens, but should it we will discuss how we can match you with another POVA.
We bill every 30 days by invoice which will need to be paid in advance upon receipt.
Most of our clients prefer to pay us by direct debit. If direct debit doesn't work for you, you can pay by credit/debit card. These details will be stored securely with Stripe, a reputable third party payment provider. SPO will never see your details. Just let us know how you’d like to pay when creating your account.
Direct Debit is the safest, most convenient way to pay in the UK. Plus, you’ll legally be protected by the Direct Debit Guarantee.
Yes. In the EU? If you hold a valid EU VAT number, we can use the reverse charge scheme to deduct UK VAT from your invoices. Just let us know your VAT number when you create your account. Not in the EU? If your company is based outside of the EU, we do not need to charge you VAT. Please discuss this with the team during your consultation call.
SPO is a prepaid service.
No.
No.
No. If you would like to cancel your plan please just note that a minimum of 7 days notice (before your next billing date) is needed.
Please contact at least 7 days before your next billing date.
You can cancel your account with SPO at any time. Simply drop an email to us at least 7 days before your next billing date.
Yes, all SPO POVAs individually hold Professional Indemnity insurance, however you would hold a legal contract with SPO and not with any individual POVA. SPO has Professional Indemnity insurance.
You can read our Terms and Conditions of Sale in the menu above.
You can read our Privacy Policy in the menu. We are 100% fully GDPR compliant and take your privacy seriously. If you have a question or feel your rights have been affected, please contact us. Others then fit into the “all–rounder” category. They have solid experience in both EA and marketing roles, and may also have additional skills in customer service (replying to customer inquiries, taking payments, etc.), financial admin, website maintenance and more. These VAs are usually from a small business background so are used to completing a wide range of tasks.
You work with a POVA on a 1:1 basis. Everything we do is task or project focused, as opposed to operating a contact centre or pooling our availability, where tasks or calls are split between whoever is available at that second. We also can’t help with tasks that would need a license or professional accreditation to carry out or are highly specialised: We generally can’t help with highly complex marketing campaigns involving SEO/SEM, PPC or affiliate marketing campaigns. Your Marketing VA may be able to implement aspects of these projects, but we are not a digital marketing agency or consultancy. We can certainly help with financial admin tasks (sending out invoices, managing bill payments, etc.) but it is important to point out that we don’t offer bookkeeping, payroll or accountancy services. We can’t act as your agent with HMRC or submit a VAT return, for example. We also generally don’t help with: Bulk cold email campaigns (i.e. to a list that hasn’t explicitly agreed to hear from you) Cold calling campaigns. Small short term, we are not a temporary secretarial agency. Or anything that makes a POVA feel uncomfortable or breaks the law. We reserve the right to reject any task assigned to us.
This service is not currently being offered.
Unfortunately not.
No.
Yes, if the subscribers have opted in. No, if they have not.
No.
We are not qualified or licensed to offer bookkeeping or accountancy services.
No. But we can introduce you to web companies.
All of our VAs have access to typical office software, such as Microsoft Office, as standard.
Yes. Simply add them to your Office 365 or G Suite dashboard and away they go!
We recommend you use software such as Passpack (free) or Lastpass to share sensitive or confidential information with your POVA. These companies have invested millions of dollars in ensuring their software is 100% secure and encrypted. You retain complete control over access to those details.
For complete peace of mind, SPO also hold comprehensive Professional Indemnity cover which covers all clients from the very minute they create an account.
We 100% GDPR compliant across all of our processes and policies. We are also registered with the ICO and far exceed all industry best practices.
The terms you agree to when creating an account with SPO contain strict confidentiality clauses to protect your interests. If you would still prefer us to sign an NDA, we are more than happy to do this.
