Virtual assistants who actually take the work off your plate.

We take the admin and the support queue off your desk, so you get your week back. Same assistant every day, from a few hours a week.

  • Two week paid trial
  • Same assistant daily
  • Starts in five days
A normal week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri

17hours a week on admin

Seventeen of your forty hours go on work that does not need you.

  • Admin and support
  • Work only you can do
  • Handled by us

Reliable

The same assistant every day, with a trained backup on your account. A sick day is not an outage.

Remote

Your hours, your tools, your time zone. Nothing waits for the overseas team in the morning.

Scalable

Start at ten hours a week. Add more the week you need it, not the quarter after.

You did not start the business to answer email.

That is not a discipline problem. It is a capacity problem, and capacity is one of the few things you can buy.

  • You sit down to work on the business. By ten you have answered forty emails, moved three meetings, and touched none of it.
  • A support message lands at seven in the evening and sits overnight. The review that follows costs more than the order was worth.
  • You tried hiring. Six weeks, three rounds of interviews, and four months later you were back where you started.
  • Half your leads never got a second message, because the person who sends it is also the person doing everything else.

How much of your week is going on this?

Move the slider to the hours you lose to admin and support in a normal week. Most people guess low the first time.

Days counted at eight hours, the year at 48 weeks so your holiday is not counted against you.

10
0hours a month
0working days a year
0full working weeks a year
Get these hours back

Takes you to the form with your hours filled in.

What we take off your plate

Two things, done properly. The admin that eats your day, and the customer conversations that cannot wait for a free hour.

What a virtual assistant does

The desk work that never makes it onto a job description.

  • Inbox managementEverything triaged, most of it answered in your voice, the four that need you at the top.
  • Calendar and schedulingBooking, rescheduling, reminders, prep notes before the call, travel.
  • CRM and dataRecords updated the day it happens. Deduping, tagging, pipeline hygiene, list building.
  • Documents and filesFormatting, proofreading, decks, contracts out for signature, a file structure someone else can follow.
  • Research and reportingSupplier lists, competitor pricing, and a Monday summary you can read in two minutes.
  • The small recurring thingsInvoice chasing, renewals, expenses, forms, and following up on the follow-up.
The Serene Odyssey mark, an S drawn inside an open circle with four small squares at its centre
One assistant, six areas, working inside your tools.

We work inside what you already use

  • Gmail
  • Outlook
  • Google Workspace
  • Microsoft 365
  • Slack
  • Notion
  • Asana
  • Trello
  • ClickUp
  • HubSpot
  • Pipedrive
  • Zoho
  • Shopify
  • WooCommerce
  • Zendesk
  • Freshdesk
  • Gorgias
  • Intercom
  • Calendly
  • QuickBooks
  • Xero

Anything not on the list gets learned during onboarding, at our cost.

How this actually starts

Four steps. The first one is a conversation, not a demo.

  1. 01

    A 20 minute call

    We ask what your week looks like and where the hours go. If we are not right for the work, we say so on the call.

  2. 02

    Scope and match

    We write the task list, agree the hours, and put forward an assistant who fits. You meet them before anything starts.

  3. 03

    Onboarding week

    Access, tools, and your processes written down as we learn them. The first tasks are run with you watching.

  4. 04

    Steady state

    A handover note every working day, a 20 minute check-in every week, a review every month.

What the first month looks like

The part most agencies skip and most clients get burned by. Here is ours, in the open.

  • Days 1 and 2Accounts, access, password manager, permissions. Nothing shared by email, nothing in plain text.
  • Days 3 to 5Your assistant shadows the work. Questions get asked now rather than guessed at later.
  • Week 2First solo tasks, reviewed by you each evening. The written process starts taking shape.
  • Week 3The process document covers the recurring work. Your backup assistant is briefed.
  • Week 4Review. What is working, what to hand over next, whether the hours are right.

Ways to work with us

Three shapes, depending on whether you need a person, a pair of hands, or a queue covered. We price against your actual task list on the call, not against a package name.

A few hours a week

Hourlyfrom ten hours a week

Billed monthly. Change the hours whenever you need to.

For owners who need the desk work gone and nothing else. The same assistant, a task list agreed each Monday.

  • One named assistant
  • Weekly task list
  • Daily handover note
  • Change the hours any week

Good forSolo founders, consultants, small practices

A covered support desk

By coveragefour or eight hours daily

Email and chat covered across the hours your customers are awake.

Not a person, a queue. Worked to your playbook, with the escalation rules agreed before we touch it.

  • Email and live chat
  • Written escalation rules
  • Weekly note on what customers keep asking
  • Scales with volume

Good forE-commerce, subscription products, anyone with a public inbox

Every arrangement starts with a two week paid trial and runs month to month after that. Stop at the trial and you pay for the hours worked, nothing else. Talk it through on a call

Us, an employee, or a marketplace freelancer

Three honest ways to get the work off your desk, including the parts that do not favour us.

Serene OdysseyHiring in-houseA marketplace freelancer
Time before real work startsOnboarding inside five working days of the scope being agreed.Six weeks is normal, between posting, interviewing and notice.Hours, if you pick well. Longer if the first two do not work out.
What you pay forHours or a monthly rate. No payroll tax, equipment or benefits.Salary, tax, benefits, equipment, software seats, holiday and sick pay.The lowest hourly number of the three, and the most variable.
Cover when they are awayA trained backup already briefed on your account.The work waits, or it comes back to you.The work waits. You find someone else and start again.
Who writes the process downWe do, as we learn it, and the document is yours to keep.You do, usually after the second time it goes wrong.Nobody. It leaves when they do.
Management overheadA daily handover note and a 20 minute weekly check-in.You are now a manager, on top of everything else.You brief every task individually, every time.
Changing the hoursUp or down the week you ask.A raise, a redundancy, or a difficult conversation.Whenever they are free.
If it is not workingTell us inside 30 days and we replace them free, process carried over.A notice period, and possibly a legal one.You start the search over from nothing.

A marketplace freelancer is the right answer for a one-off piece of work. The other two are for work that comes back every week.

What clients say

Three slots, built and waiting. Nothing written into them yet, because a testimonial you did not say is worth less than an empty space.

  • A first-month quoteSomebody who was nervous about handing work over, three weeks in.
  • A numbers quoteHours back in the week, response time on the queue, something countable.
  • A long-run quoteA client past six months, on what they hand over now that they would not have then.

Who we work with

  • E-commerce and DTC
  • Real estate and property management
  • Agencies and studios
  • Clinics, dental and allied health
  • Coaches and course creators
  • Professional services
  • Logistics and field service
  • SaaS and subscription products

Different queues, same problem. Someone has to answer, and it should not be you at eleven at night.

How we handle your access and your customers’ data

The part clients ask about last and worry about first.

  • Signed before accessAn NDA is signed by the company and by the individual assistant before an account is opened.
  • Least privilegeAccess comes through your password manager at the lowest level the task needs. We do not ask for passwords by email.
  • Revoked on day oneAccess is removed the day an assistant comes off your account, not at the end of the month.
  • Your process, your documentEverything we learn about how you work is written into a document that belongs to you.
  • Data stays in your systemsWe work inside your helpdesk and your CRM, not in a spreadsheet on somebody’s desktop.

Questions people ask before they book

If yours is not here, ask it on the call. We would rather answer it honestly in twenty minutes than have you find out in month two.

What does a virtual assistant actually do?
Anything on your desk that does not need you specifically. In practice that is inbox, calendar, CRM updates, research, documents, invoice chasing and the follow-ups nobody gets to. On the support side it is tickets, live chat, order issues and returns. The test is simple: if you could explain it to a capable person in fifteen minutes, it can be handed over.
How much does a virtual assistant cost?
It depends on the hours and how specialised the work is, so we quote against your actual task list rather than against a package name. Tell us what you want handed over and we will give you a number on the first call. It will not move afterwards, and there is no setup fee.
Will I get the same assistant every day?
Yes. One named person on your account, plus a trained backup who already knows how you work, so holidays and sick days do not become your problem.
Which time zones do you cover?
US Eastern through US Pacific and UK business hours are standard, 8am to 6pm in your zone. Other windows, including overnight cover, are available on dedicated plans. Tell us the window that matters and we will tell you honestly whether we can staff it.
Which tools do you work in?
Yours. Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Notion, Asana, ClickUp, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Shopify, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Gorgias, Intercom, Calendly, QuickBooks and Xero are all routine. Anything unfamiliar gets learned during onboarding at our cost, not yours.
How quickly can someone start?
Onboarding begins within five working days of the scope being agreed. There is no job posting and no interview round to run, which is where the six weeks normally goes.
What if the assistant is not the right fit?
Tell us inside the first 30 days and we replace them at no cost. Because the process is written down as we learn it, a replacement picks the work up without you re-explaining anything.
Is my customer data safe?
Access comes through your password manager at the lowest useful permission level, under a signed NDA, and it is revoked the day someone leaves your account. Customer records stay in your systems.
Do you handle phone calls as well as email and chat?
Email and live chat are the core. Phone answering and outbound calling are available on dedicated plans from twenty hours a week.
Can I start with a small number of hours?
Yes, and most people should. Ten hours a week is the minimum, and the first two weeks are a paid trial. Start with the one thing that annoys you most, prove the handover works, then add.

Tell us what your week looks like

Twenty minutes, no deck, no pitch. You leave with a written list of what could be handed over, whether you work with us or not.

  1. TodayA real person reads it, not an autoresponder.
  2. Within one working dayA reply with two or three times for a call.
  3. On the callTwenty minutes. You leave with a written list either way.
Hours

Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm in your time zone

Start here. It takes about a minute.

What do you need help with?
Optional, but it is the fastest way to a call.

We reply within one working day. Nothing you write here goes anywhere except the Serene Odyssey inbox.