--- title: "What Does a Virtual Assistant Do? Task Examples | Ant Assist" description: "What a virtual assistant does for a UK business: the admin, customer service, lead generation and e-commerce tasks a VA takes on, what a VA does not do." url: "https://ant-assist.com/resources/what-does-a-virtual-assistant-do/" --- RESOURCES · VA BASICS # What does a virtual assistant do? Tasks and examples A virtual assistant does the work that has to happen every day but does not have to be done by you, across admin, customer service, lead generation and e-commerce. Tools our VAs use for this - Updated 24 October 2026 - 10 min read - By Ant Assist [Calculate your savings](https://ant-assist.com/calculator/) · [Book a free 15-min call](https://ant-assist.com/book/) In short A virtual assistant does the work that has to happen every day but does not have to be done by you. That work falls into four families: admin (inbox, diary, travel, expenses), customer service (email, chat, calls, refunds), lead generation (research, outreach, CRM, call booking) and e-commerce (listings, orders, stock, returns). Each family maps to its own kind of VA. A general VA can cover the admin family and the lighter end of the others; the more the work depends on a platform and a process, the more you want an assistant hired for that family. Two things are true of every kind. The VA works inside your accounts and your tools, not their own, so the work and the data stay yours. And the VA works to rules you set: what they may do alone, what they draft for your approval, and what always comes to you. Most of the difference between a VA who transforms your week and one who adds to it is whether those rules were written down. A [virtual assistant job description template](https://ant-assist.com/resources/virtual-assistant-job-description/) is a good place to write them down. On this page Admin Virtual Assistant [Book a free 15-minute discovery call](https://ant-assist.com/book/) On this page [Book a call](https://ant-assist.com/book/) · [Calculate your savings](https://ant-assist.com/calculator/) The work ## Admin tasks a virtual assistant takes on An admin virtual assistant typically takes on inbox triage, calendar management, travel booking, document and note preparation, expense tracking, and supplier and vendor coordination. This is the first family most businesses delegate, because the tasks already exist and are already being done by someone too senior for them. A [virtual admin assistant](https://ant-assist.com/services/admin/) typically owns six of them. If the support is mainly for one person, see [virtual assistant vs personal assistant](https://ant-assist.com/resources/virtual-assistant-vs-personal-assistant/). Most businesses start with one family of work and one person. ### Inbox triage Sorts your inbox, drafts replies for your review, archives noise and surfaces what needs your attention. Routine replies go out independently within limits you agree. ### Calendar management Books meetings, manages reschedules, blocks focus time and keeps your schedule clean across time zones, with prep information sent ahead of each meeting. ### Travel booking Books flights, hotels, transfers and accommodation, and prepares itineraries with confirmations, addresses and contact details ready before you leave. ### Document & note prep Formats documents, prepares meeting notes, drafts standard correspondence and maintains your filing system. Work like this is also covered in [virtual secretary vs virtual assistant](https://ant-assist.com/resources/virtual-secretary-vs-virtual-assistant/). ### Expense tracking Processes receipts, categorises spending, prepares monthly expense reports and syncs them with your accounting tool. ### Supplier & vendor coordination Liaises with suppliers, schedules service visits, manages quotes and handles routine vendor communication. The work ## Customer service tasks A customer service virtual assistant handles email and ticket replies, live chat, inbound calls, and refunds, returns and complaints. The second family is the front line: everything a customer sends you, on every channel. A [customer service virtual assistant](https://ant-assist.com/services/customer-service/) answers under your brand and escalates by rules you build together. ### Email & ticket response Replies to customer emails within your service standard, escalates anything outside their scope and keeps the ticket queue moving. ### Live chat coverage Staffs your live chat during your business hours, or extended hours where you need them, turning website visitors into qualified conversations. ### Inbound call handling Answers calls under your brand, takes messages, schedules callbacks and routes urgent issues to you immediately. ### Refunds, returns & complaints Processes refunds and exchanges to your standards, defuses complaints and escalates only when a decision is yours to make. The work ## Lead generation tasks A lead generation virtual assistant handles prospect research, cold email outreach, LinkedIn prospecting, CRM hygiene and discovery call booking. The third family is the top of the pipeline. A [lead generation virtual assistant](https://ant-assist.com/services/lead-generation/) is measured on qualified conversations booked, not on activity. ### Prospect research Researches and qualifies leads against your ideal customer profile, sourced from LinkedIn, industry databases and your existing CRM. ### Cold email outreach Runs multi-step email sequences in your tools and your messaging, measured on replies rather than volume sent. ### LinkedIn prospecting Sends connection requests and follow-ups, and engages with prospects' content to warm them up before outreach. ### CRM hygiene Keeps the pipeline accurate: contact details updated, activities logged, deals moved between stages, duplicates removed. Our guide on [what is data cleansing](https://ant-assist.com/resources/what-is-data-cleansing/) explains the steps behind tidy records. ### Discovery call booking Manages your booking link, qualifies interested prospects, sends prep materials and confirms attendance. The work ## E-commerce tasks An e-commerce virtual assistant handles product listings, order processing, inventory monitoring, reviews and marketplace messages, and returns and exchanges. The fourth family is store operations across every channel you sell on. An [e-commerce virtual assistant](https://ant-assist.com/services/ecommerce/) keeps the store running without you in it every hour. ### Product listings Creates, updates and optimises listings with titles, descriptions, images and attributes across Shopify, Amazon, eBay and your other marketplaces. ### Order processing Processes orders, tracks fulfilment, handles cancellations, updates shipping statuses and coordinates with couriers. ### Inventory monitoring Watches stock levels across SKUs and channels, triggers reorders before bestsellers run out and flags slow movers. ### Reviews & messages Responds to customer reviews and marketplace messages on Amazon, eBay and your store, protecting your seller rating. ### Returns & exchanges Processes returns, manages exchanges, handles refunds within your policy and identifies the patterns that reduce return rates. Any of these tasks Pick the work and we match the VA Whether it is admin, customer service, lead generation or store work, your VA is dedicated to you and never shared. [Explore the admin VA service](https://ant-assist.com/services/admin/) · [See your savings](https://ant-assist.com/calculator/) Boundaries ## Work outside a VA's remit A virtual assistant does not set strategy, is not a specialist by default in work such as bookkeeping, legal drafting or design, and does not act beyond the authority you give. A virtual assistant is not a substitute for every role you have not filled, and the hires that fail are usually the ones that expected one. A VA does not set strategy. They run the inbox; they do not decide which customers you should be chasing. They run the outreach; they do not write the positioning it depends on. If you need someone to decide, you need a manager, a consultant or a co-founder. A VA is not a specialist by default. Bookkeeping to a filing standard, legal drafting, design, software development and paid-media management are their own professions. Some assistants have a second skill and it is worth asking, but hire the profession when the work needs the profession, and let the VA do the coordination around it. A VA does not carry authority they were never given. They will not approve a refund outside policy, commit you to a supplier's price or answer a prospect's question about your roadmap. That is a feature: the edge of their scope is where your judgement is meant to sit, and a good VA hands over at that edge with the context written up. A VA is not an AI tool. There are useful automations for scheduling, transcription and drafting, and a good VA uses them. But the work described on this page needs a person who knows your business, follows your process and can be held to a standard. Where a VA's scope ends and your judgement or a specialist takes over. Costs ## VA costs and how hiring works What a virtual assistant costs depends more on the hiring model than on the task, whether that is a UK-based assistant, a freelancer or a managed VA. A UK-based assistant, employed or through a UK agency, costs what a UK salary costs plus the employment overheads and your management time. A freelancer's hourly rate looks lower until you add the hours you spend recruiting, briefing and covering gaps. A managed VA is employed, trained and supervised by the provider, works for your business alone, and is replaced by the provider if the fit is wrong. A managed VA from Ant Assist starts at £5 per hour on the entry rate: the first 6 months on the Entry tier, 3 months on Mid, 1 month on Expert. After the promotion the rate depends on the service, from £5.50 per hour full time on the Entry tier for lead generation to £6.50 for e-commerce, with Mid and Expert tiers above for longer experience; part time runs at 80 hours a month, full time at 160. The rate includes the assistant's time, our office facilities in Cairo, and the supervision and management that keep quality up. Every VA is recruited, managed and supervised from our own in-house office, works your UK hours and is dedicated to one client. The full comparison against a UK employee is in [how much a virtual assistant costs in the UK](https://ant-assist.com/resources/virtual-assistant-cost-uk/), and the step-by-step process, from choosing the model to the first 30 days, is in [how to hire a virtual assistant](https://ant-assist.com/resources/va-hiring-guide/). The one rule for what to delegate first: take last week's calendar and inbox, mark every item someone else could have done with the right access and a clear rule, and hand over the family with the most marks. Do not split a first hire across two families. One person doing two jobs badly is the commonest way a first VA hire fails, and one person doing one job well is how most long-term engagements begin. For the admin family, an [admin virtual assistant](https://ant-assist.com/services/admin/) is the usual place to start. [See the numbers for your own hours](https://ant-assist.com/calculator/) Rated 5.0 on Google. · Trusted by our clients FAQ ## Questions about what VAs do ### What does a virtual assistant do in a typical week for a small business? The work that has to happen every day but does not have to be done by you. In one week that is usually the inbox triaged and answered, the diary kept, records and receipts entered, customer messages handled, and the outreach or the store admin kept moving, depending on which of the four families of work you delegated. ### What are the four families of virtual assistant work? Admin (inbox, diary, records, documents), customer service (tickets, chat, calls, reviews), lead generation (lists, outreach, appointment setting, CRM) and e-commerce (listings, orders, stock, marketplace messages). Most businesses start with one family and one person; a second VA is added when a second family fills a week. ### Which roles should you not expect a virtual assistant to fill? A role that needs authority or presence. A VA does not set prices, sign contracts, hire, or make the decision inside a complaint, and does not host visitors or handle physical post. The hires that fail are the ones that expected a VA to be a manager, a salesperson who closes, or an accountant. ### How do I decide what to delegate first? Track your own week for a fortnight and mark every task that repeats, has a clear finished state and needs your time rather than your authority. The first family to delegate is the one with the most marks, and inside it the daily tasks go first because they carry the most hours and the clearest rules. ### What does a virtual assistant cost, and how quickly can one start? £5 per hour for the first 6 months on the Entry tier, every role. After the promotion the rate card for the role applies: admin from £6.30 per hour full time (£1,008 a month for 160 hours) or £6.50 part time (£520 a month for 80 hours). Timing depends on the role and any specific experience you need. We confirm it on the discovery call, because matching the right person matters more than matching the fastest. Didn't find your answer? Browse [more common questions](https://ant-assist.com/help/) in the Help Center. Get Started Hand over the work. Keep the business. One dedicated VA for the family of work that costs you most. Book a free 15-minute call. [Book a free 15-min call](https://ant-assist.com/book/) · [Calculate your savings](https://ant-assist.com/calculator/) Discovery call · Role brief · VA matched · Onboarded into your tools