Virtual Assistants: Do They Make Life Easier?

June 23, 2010 — -- If you've ever wanted your own personal assistant, websites that promise cost-effective outsourcing of tasks sound like a dream.

For roughly $2 a task, sites like AskSunday.com, RedButler.com and ihabilis.com will schedule your doctor's appointments, buy wedding gifts off a registry for you and even help you research a dishwasher purchase.

To test these services I submitted three tasks to each site and then judged how efficient they were at getting the jobs done.

First I signed up for AskSunday.com. For all of these sites you have to submit lots of personal information like your address, your credit card number, your e-mail address and your phone number.

I tasked AskSunday with helping me find lodging for a last-minute family trip on the 4th of July, researching tuition rates at preschools near my home, and helping me find prices from a tree trimmer to take down a tree in my backyard.

For the lodging request, AskSunday sent me five links: four of which were to rentals and hotels that didn't have availability on the dates I had submitted. The fifth link was to a house rental site that didn't list availability, but when I called the number listed on the site I did find an available cottage.

AskSunday did a good job finding five preschools in my area and got tuition quotes for most of the schools.

I thought this would be the toughest task for the site, but whether it was the individual who handled the request or it was an easier task than I'd anticipated, this research work was really helpful.

Finally, AskSunday sent me links to five tree trimmers. I didn't receive any rate quotes, but the site gave one of the tree companies my phone number and they called me directly to give me a quote.

RedButler is the only one of the services I used that is based in the U.S.

I wondered if that difference would impact the results, but I saw no differences in the three services that seemed traceable to their locations. RedButler got the jobs of helping me find a gift, buying something online so I didn't have to fill out all the forms, and helping me find a babysitter on an upcoming trip to someplace I'd never been.

The gift suggestions were pretty generic considering all the specifics I'd submitted, but the concierge did find me a discount code for 10 percent off at the gift site they suggested. To purchase the product online I did have to go to the RedButler site and input my credit card number, but I was surprised that they couldn't pull that information from their database since I had submitted it to pay for the service.

Finally they sent three options for babysitting services and I contacted the owner of one who turned out to be fantastically helpful.