Questions people ask before they hire.
We staff two things: one dedicated assistant, or a managed contact center team. Below is how each one works, what it costs, what the guarantees actually cover, and what happens when something goes wrong.
Two ways to work with us
Most of the questions below have a different answer depending on which of these you are hiring. Pick the one that sounds like you, then use the filter to see only the answers that apply.
A virtual assistant
One person, matched to you, working your hours as part of your team. You set the priorities day to day. We handle the hiring, the employment and the performance management behind them.
- You have one role to fill: admin, marketing, bookkeeping, design, sales support
- The work fits inside one person's week
- You are happy to direct one person yourself
A contact center team
A team of agents with a Team Lead, quality scoring and weekly reporting sitting on top of it. We run the floor and the quality bar. You own the customer outcome.
- Call, chat or ticket volume that one person cannot hold
- You need coverage across shifts, weekends or a full 24/7 clock
- You want quality scored and reported rather than assumed
- The work is regulated and needs trained, supervised handling
Only need the phones covered? A virtual receptionist or answering service sits below both of these, and it is often the right first step.
Answering service ›Still sitting between two of them? We wrote a straight comparison of all three, including when the cheaper option is the right one.
Which service do I need? ›Which one do I actually need?
What is the real difference between a VA and a contact center team?
Management, not headcount. With a virtual assistant you get a person and you direct them. With a contact center team you get a staffed function: a Team Lead running the shift, quality scored against a scorecard, adherence watched live, and a weekly report on how it went.
The practical test is what happens at 9am on a Monday with a queue backed up. One assistant needs you to tell them what to do first. A managed team already has someone on our side doing that.
Can I start with one person and grow into a team later?
Yes, and that is the most common path. Plenty of clients start with a single dedicated agent, prove the work, then add seats and shift structure on top once volume justifies it.
The layer that changes is supervision. Below 10 seats you get shared Team Lead oversight. At 10 seats and up you get a dedicated Team Lead. At 25 a QA Specialist is added, and at 50 or more a Program Manager and workforce management.
I just need someone to answer the phone. Do I need either of these?
Probably not yet. If the ask is "do not let a call go to voicemail", a virtual receptionist or answering service is cheaper and faster to stand up, and we will tell you that on the call rather than sell you a team.
You outgrow it when calls need real resolution rather than a message taken, or when the volume needs more than one pair of hands.
Can I run both at the same time?
Yes. It is a normal shape: a contact center team holding the front line on calls and chat, with one or two virtual assistants behind it doing the back office work that does not belong in a queue.
One invoice, one operations manager, two different delivery models underneath.
Hiring, matching and timelines
How long until I have someone working?VA
We send you a matched VA profile within 3 to 5 business days of your discovery call. From there, most clients have their VA working within 5 to 7 days total.
The gap between those two numbers is you. Once you approve the match, the start date is whenever you are ready for it.
How long does it take to stand up a whole team?Contact center
Most contact center teams are recruited, trained and operational within two to four weeks. Where you land in that range depends on seat count, how many channels you are running, and whether the work carries compliance requirements that need training built around them.
It is longer than a single VA placement because we are not just finding people. We are building a shift pattern, a scorecard and an escalation path before anyone takes a live customer.
Can I interview the VA before committing?VA
Yes. We shortlist, you meet them, you decide. We do not assign someone to you sight unseen and we do not use an algorithm to pick for you.
This is a deliberate difference from the larger VA services, where matching is done for you and the first time you meet your assistant is the day they start.
Do I get to meet the team before they go live?Contact center
Yes. You meet the Team Lead, and you can sit in on agent interviews for the seats you care most about. You also sign off the quality scorecard at kickoff, which is the thing that actually shapes how your customers get treated.
What we do not do is ask you to interview every seat on a 25 person team. That is the work you are hiring us to absorb.
What do you need from me to start?
A 15 minute discovery call and a rough sense of the work. You do not need a polished job description. If you are not sure what the role should be, that is what the call is for, and our role scope generator can give you a starting point.
For a contact center team, bring your current volumes if you have them: calls or tickets per day, your busiest hours, and what a resolved contact looks like. If you do not have the numbers, we will size it from what you do know.
Where are your people based and what hours do they work?
All of our talent is in the Philippines. People work your business hours, whichever timezone that is. Most of our clients are in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Contact center teams go further than one shift. With overlapping shifts and follow-the-sun scheduling we cover after hours, weekends and a full 24/7 clock so your customers always reach a live agent.
How do you vet people?
Human led, not algorithmic. Applicants go through a role specific assessment, a recorded voice test for any phone facing role, and a live interview with our recruiting team before they ever reach a shortlist.
We accept roughly the top 3 percent of applicants. The ones who make it through are the ones we would put in front of our own clients, because that is exactly what we do with them.
How a managed team is built and run
What is actually included in a managed team?Contact center
Recruitment and vetting, onboarding and ongoing training, payroll, benefits and equipment, tool licensing, daily QA and weekly reporting. It is a running function, not a list of resumes.
What you supply is the product knowledge, the systems access and the definition of a good outcome. Everything on the staffing and supervision side sits with us. The full breakdown is on the managed teams page.
Do I get a team lead, or am I managing agents myself?Contact center
You get one. A dedicated Team Lead comes with every engagement at 10 seats and up, and below that you get shared Team Lead oversight. A QA Specialist is added at 25 seats, and a Program Manager plus workforce management at 50 or more.
The Team Lead is the on-shift people leader: they run the huddle, grade and coach calls against the scorecard, watch adherence live, take the customer an agent could not resolve, and escalate on the agent's behalf. You should not be the first person a struggling agent hears from.
What channels can you cover?Contact center
Inbound and outbound voice, live chat, SMS and WhatsApp, email and ticketing, social media, and Tier-1 and Tier-2 technical support. You can run one channel or a fully blended omnichannel desk.
Channel pages with the detail: inbound, outbound, live chat and messaging, email and ticketing, technical support and 24/7 and after hours.
Do your agents work in my tools or yours?Contact center
Yours. Agents work inside your stack, under your accounts, on your data. We run tier-1 and tier-2 queues in Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom and HubSpot, and we work in whatever CRM and telephony you already use.
We bring our own layer on top for workforce and quality: time and activity tracking, the QA scorecard, and the weekly reporting pack.
How do you measure quality rather than just hours?Contact center
A scorecard agreed at kickoff, weighted to what matters to you: greeting, compliance disclosures, problem identification, resolution accuracy, tone and wrap-up. Then a cycle that runs every week without being asked.
QA samples calls and tickets daily per agent, the Team Lead and QA Specialist calibrate weekly so scores mean the same thing from one grader to the next, and a low score triggers a one to one coaching session the same week. Repeat issues escalate rather than quietly continue. More detail on the team lead and QA page.
What do I actually receive every week?Contact center
A performance dashboard covering AHT, FCR, CSAT, adherence, occupancy and QA scores. QA highlights and lowlights, with sample call clips on request. Capacity and forecasting notes. An escalations and risk register.
Teams at 25 seats and up also get a monthly business review, which is where trends and staffing changes get decided rather than reacted to.
Can I scale the team up and down with seasonality?Contact center
Yes, and that is one of the honest advantages of an outsourced team over hiring in-house. Tell your operations manager what is coming and we plan the ramp, rather than you carrying peak headcount all year.
Scaling down needs notice so we can redeploy people rather than end their employment over a slow quarter. We will always tell you the lead time up front.
Have you staffed teams in my industry?Contact center
We build teams across healthcare, financial services, education, home services, ecommerce, SaaS, travel, real estate and more, each with the framework training that sector needs. The full list of verticals is on the contact center hub.
If your industry is not listed, it usually means we have not written the page yet rather than that we cannot staff it. Ask on the call.
Pricing and payment
What does a virtual assistant cost?VA
It depends on the role, the hours, and the skill level, so we quote per engagement rather than publishing a rate card. We work in three models: hourly, flat monthly rate, and a growth partner arrangement for larger scopes.
You will get a specific number on the discovery call, not a range. If you want to sanity check the economics first, the VA cost calculator and the hiring savings calculator will get you close.
How is a contact center team billed?Contact center
There are five billing models in this industry: per hour, per minute, per call, per resolution, and hybrid. They differ in who carries the risk when volume moves, which matters more than the headline number. We walk through all five, with published market rate ranges from third party sources, on the contact center pricing page.
Your own quote is built on the call from seat count, channels, coverage hours and compliance load. To model the economics before you talk to anyone, use the call center cost calculator or read the cost guide.
Do I pay anything before anyone starts?
No. Zero deposit, and that is literal. No setup fee, no recruitment fee, no placement fee. Sourcing, vetting, matching and interview coordination are all free, whether that is one assistant or a full team build.
Your first invoice comes after people start working.
Am I locked into a contract?
No. Month to month, no long term commitment. If you need to scale down or stop, you tell us.
The one thing we ask for on a contact center team is notice on a reduction, because we are managing real employment on the other side of it.
Do I handle payroll, taxes, benefits or equipment?
No. You pay one invoice to Armasourcing. We handle the employment relationship, payment, benefits, equipment and the administration behind it. You are not registering anything, running foreign payroll, or managing compliance in another country.
That stays true at one assistant and at 50 seats. The invoice gets bigger. The number of things you administer does not.
Guarantees and what happens if it goes wrong
What if the VA is not the right fit?VA
We replace them free within the first 110 days under the 110-Day Perfect Hire Guarantee. No replacement fee, no new deposit, no restarting your terms.
You do not need to build a case for it. Tell us what is not working so we match better next time, and we take it from there.
What if one agent on my team is not working out?Contact center
Raise it with your Team Lead. In most cases it is a coaching problem and it gets handled inside the QA cycle that week. If it is not, we replace the seat, and the same 110 day replacement terms apply.
The difference from a single placement is that your service does not stop while we do it. Coverage is held by the rest of the team and the incoming agent onboards behind the line.
What if the work is not producing results?
That is a different guarantee. The 90-Day Impact or Refund covers outcomes rather than fit. We attempt a replacement first, and if we still cannot deliver the results we agreed, you can request a refund covering the fees for the affected period.
It has conditions, and we state them up front: KPIs agreed in week one, tools and access provided, feedback given while it is still fixable, a replacement allowed before a refund, and the request made in writing within 15 days of the day 90 review.
How many replacements do I get?
There is no fixed cap inside the guarantee window. If we get it wrong twice, that is our problem to fix rather than a reason to charge you. In practice a second replacement means we misread the role, so we will redo the scoping with you before shortlisting again.
Management, tracking and security
Who manages the person or the team?
You direct the work. We manage the people. You set priorities and deadlines, and we handle performance management, quality reviews, coaching, payroll and cover. Every account has an operations manager on our side.
On a contact center team there is one more layer between you and the floor: the Team Lead owns the shift, so day to day supervision never lands back on your desk.
How do I know what hours I am actually paying for?
Everyone works on Trckr, our own time tracking system. You see tracked hours, activity and screenshots. Not every provider in this category offers that, and several of the largest ones do not track time at all.
On top of the raw hours, every VA gets a weekly QA review and a written coaching summary. Contact center teams add adherence and occupancy to that, so you can see not just hours logged but hours actually on the queue.
What about data security and regulated work?
Everyone signs an NDA and works inside your systems, under your accounts. For regulated work our contact center teams are trained and set up to operate under HIPAA, PCI DSS, TCPA, FDCPA, GLBA, FERPA, GDPR, CCPA and SEC or FINRA requirements. The detail is on our compliance page.
To be straight with you about what that means: being compliance ready is not the same as holding your certification for you. It means our people and processes are built to work inside your compliance program, not to replace it.
What happens when someone is sick or on leave?
For a single VA, tell your operations manager and we arrange cover. Because we manage the talent pool rather than just introducing you to a freelancer, there is someone to call on.
On a contact center team it is built in rather than arranged. Shifts overlap and the Team Lead re-covers the queue, which is the whole point of buying a team instead of a person.
What if I need to add a completely different kind of role later?
Same account, same operations manager, same invoice. We staff both delivery lines, so adding a bookkeeper behind an existing support team, or a support team behind an existing assistant, does not mean starting a new relationship.
Browse what we staff on the services page.
Still have a question?
Book a free 15 minute discovery call. No commitment, no pressure, just a straight answer about whether one assistant, a team, or neither is right for your business.
