Review of Brickwork India Virtual Assistants: Room for Improvement, but Leading the Pack

Like a lot of people who have read The 4-Hour Workweek (review), right when I finished it I told myself “I have got to get a virtual assistant.” I imagined all kinds of time consuming tasks that I could get off my plate. But offloading tasks to VA’s comes with its own set of challenges (I’ve covered some of them in my “VA’s – Hit and Miss” post). Now it’s time to get specific – so this post is all about my experience with Brickwork India from October, 2007 to now:

I signed up for Brickwork’s ‘Basic Services’ package, which according to their services page covers services like: “Assistance in MS Office and Other tasks, Internet Search, Bookkeeping and Accounting, Assistance in MS Outlook tasks, Sales And Marketing Support, Remote Desktop Management, Travel Assistance, Assistance in HR / Personnal tasks.” Note that this doesn’t mean that your VA will have all of the skills listed; nor is it an exhaustive list of the tasks that can be performed by your ‘Basic Services’ VA. It just means that if you want to hire a VA for any of those types of tasks, it falls under their ‘Basic Services’ package.

Cost: $15/hr (price break for 40 hours/week: $12.50/hr)

The Sign-up Process: Due to the popularity of VA services these days, when I initially contacted Brickwork via their website, I got a “Thanks, but we’re slammed. We’ll get back to you in a week or two…” type note (that’s not the exact wording, but you get the idea). I half expected not to hear back, but about a week and a half later I got a response. They contacted me with requests for information about the type of work I needed done, some forms they needed me to fill out, and a bunch of other red tape. It was a bit of a slow and clunky process.

Payments / Billing: Overall the billing and payment process is fairly painless. One drawback is that Brickwork doesn’t take credit cards. They suggest wire transfer as their preferred method of payment, but I don’t like wire transfers for several reasons: (1) they’re not protected against fraud like credit card transactions are; (2) I have to go to my local bank branch to initiate and authorize the transfer – every time, and (3) my bank (Wells Fargo) charges me about $30-40 per wire transfer. So, I asked Brickwork if they could accept PayPal – and I was told they could. The weird thing is that they had to re-issue the invoice (to include a PayPal fee (PayPal charges a percentage fee, which Brickwork adds on to their total bill, so I pay the fee)), and that invoice re-issue took a couple days. That PayPal fee is about the same as the wire transfer fee, but I don’t have to go into a bank to initiate payment – and I can use my credit card. I’d like to have the payment automatically deducted from my credit card, but this works I guess.

Task Tracking: The monthly invoices they send me just consist of a total amount due for the month. This is because I’ve signed up for a flat number of hours to be billed per month…so I can certainly understand why they do it that way. But it would be really nice to be able to – just like any other service bill – see an itemized breakdown of what work was performed during the billing period. With my current VA this isn’t a big deal, but if I had an under-performing VA, I’d definitely like to cross-check how many hours were being spent on each task. Update (6/30/2008): I created a time tracking spreadsheet in eXpresso (update: I have since switched to Google Docs (see a sample time tracking worksheet)) and my VA now updates this sheet daily with tasks worked. The spreadsheet is online, so we don’t have to e-mail it back and forth. Depending on your needs, you could also use a light project management tool like Basecamp (or Zoho Projects).

Use it or Lose it: A “have your cake and eat it too” request for Brickwork would be for them to offer a package that allows customers to pay only for the hours they use. As it is you have to commit to a number of hours of work per month, just like a regular employee. If you buy the 40 hour/month package, and you only provide enough work to keep your VA busy for 20 hours – well, you still pay for the full 40. Use it or lose it.

Aside from these wish list items the payment communications are reliable and they’re reasonably responsive to related queries.

VA Talent: I have been fortunate with my Brickwork VA. Brickwork is the only Virtual Assistant firm where the first VA I was assigned is the one I still work with today (with other firms I’ve worked with I’ve had to ask for replacements). Update (6/30/08): My first Brickwork Virtual Assistant was eager to learn, and took pride in her work. However, she left the company, and I was assigned a new VA. Fortunately the transition process was pretty smooth – and I think that’s where Brickwork earns it’s keep – but my new VA, unfortunately doesn’t quite fill the shoes of his predecessor. He does good work in some instances, but frequently needs reminders and all of his work has to be checked. Update (9/1/2008): My second Brickwork VA just couldn’t hack it. His task results were constantly sub-par, he needed frequent reminders, he was slow to complete his work, he was an “under-communicator”, and I didn’t feel comfortable assigning tasks to him that required any subjective interpretation. I finally asked for a replacement. Brickwork has said they will honor my request. Update (11/14/2008): Brickwork honored my request for a replacement, and made the transition pretty quickly. After a couple months working with my third Brickwork Virtual Assistant, my faith in the business is somewhat restored. This latest assistant is, like my firsts, eager to learn, a fast worker, responsive, and overall a pretty good communicator. The most important thing is that we are able to assign her tasks with clear instructions, and she follows those instructions.

Some of the tasks I have had my Brickwork VA work on have been a little more technical in nature, compared to the ‘Basic Services’ tasks listed above. Often I have them reseearch specific business topics, and publish summaries of their research using a Joomla or WordPress Content Management System (CMS). Other tasks involve creating or formatting spreadsheets, creating reports based on spreadsheet data, and very basic website content editing. By contrast, another virtual assistant firm, Get Friday just told me straight up that their virtual assistant could not perform these types of tasks. Update (6/30/2008): I no longer have my Brickwork VA do research tasks – he can only perform the most basic website content updating tasks. Update (11/4/2008): Well, it depends on who you are assigned as an assistant. My third assistant is more competent than my second, and I’m now assigning her most of the same types of tasks as I described above.

Although my [first] Brickwork VA didn’t initially have experience with Joomla or WordPress, she seemed to be genuinely interested in learning. Just like when you hire an inexperienced employee, you have to be patient and hands-on in the beginning, and hope they pick it up and run with it. Luckily that’s what happened for me. Once she was comfortable with the types of projects and tasks I assigned to her, she became largely independent. When she needed help with something she would aske me directly first – and if I couldn’t answer the question she was good about checking with her other Brickwork team members for resolutions. Update (6/30/2008): My current Brickwork VA is still pretty independent, but the tasks have to be very well defined, and I’m a bit more constrained as to the types of work I can give him. Basic, repetitive tasks are best. Tasks that require creative solutions sometimes generate disappointing, sometimes surprising, results. Update (11/4/2008): Again, my third virtual assistant has been performing higher quality work than the second one, who she replaced.

Communications: At first I communicated with my [first] Brickwork VA pretty regularly via e-mail, instant messenger, and the occasional Skype phone call. There’s definitely a language barrier, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the quality of communications, both oral and written. As she became more experienced with my tasks, daily communication was no longer necessary. For a while I just e-mailed her tasks on the fly, and she would reply to each e-mail when it was completed. But I implemented a different method of managing the tasks, which has really reduced the time I spend managing the relationship. Update (6/30/2008): My [second] virtual assistant also communicates ok via Skype and e-mail, but his business acumen isn’t quite as developed. Basic follow-up is a weak point…but he’s getting better. Update (6/30/2008): The third assistant has better communication skills than the second. She is proactive and asks questions, whereas the second VA would perform a task first; ask questions later.

Work Schedule: Because my Brickwork VAs’ works from about 7:00am to 3:00pm (Bangalore time), they’re starting her day around the same time I’m finishing mine (I’m in California (US Pacific Time Zone)). This does mean that they finish their work while I’m sleeping – but it also means that we are unavailable to clarify task instructions during their work day. So, the time we use to discuss task instructions is usually my late evening (8:00 pm to 12:00 midnight) – which is sometimes a bit of a pain. But as I said above, the days of daily live communications between my Brickwork VA and I are done, and I don’t commit much of my evening time to task clarifications anymore. Note: some other firms’ VA’s (like Get Friday) will work during your business hours.

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5
(Update 6/30/2008): 4 out of 5

• Pro’s:
  • Flexibility, in terms of the types of tasks willing and able to perform
  • Ability of VA to adopt my own method of project and task management (like Basecamp)
  • Generally quick and accurate communications
  • Relatively smooth transitions in case of one virtual assistant leaving the firm, or another being replaced by request
• Con’s:
  • Payment methods available are not ideal (I’d prefer regular credit card billing)
  • “Use it or lose it” time. You pay for the hours committed whether you keep your VA busy or not.
  • I wish that they had a better way of tracking time spent on tasks. Monthly invoice gives no such detail. Update (6/30/2008): For the past two months I’ve been receiving a monthly task breakdown summary, which does help me account for time spent.
  • Cost is not that competitive. At $15, or even $12.50/hr the cost is probably not all that much less than what you might be able to pay a US college student to do the same kind of work.
  • The evening hours work schedule can take getting used to

Also see our other Reviews of Virtual Assistant Firms.