Setting up a remote assistant, step by step

How the handover runs

A careful start makes the later weeks much easier.

1. Agree scope and terms with the service partner after your request is passed on.
2. Write down the tasks you are handing over, with examples of done-right work.
3. Give access through delegation or a password manager, never by sending passwords in email.
4. Spend the first week answering questions and correcting small things early.

Before day one

The work goes better when these are ready in advance.

• Decide which tasks move first and which wait
• Write each process down, even roughly
• Gather the logins the assistant will need and plan how to share them safely
• Set up a separate user account where the tool allows it
• Agree how urgent items should be flagged
• Set approval limits for refunds, price changes, payments and outgoing invoices

Least access, clearly logged

Give an assistant the access a task needs and no more. Someone entering orders does not need permission to issue refunds. Someone answering chat does not need admin rights in the help desk.

Delegation and individual user accounts make this easy and keep a record of activity under the assistant's own name. Where a shared login cannot be avoided, keep it in a password manager and leave two-factor authentication on. Avoid sending passwords in email, text or chat.

Plan the exit at the start: a list of every system the assistant can reach, so you can remove access and change shared passwords the day the arrangement ends.

What the ongoing work looks like

Day to day, the assistant works through the agreed tasks and keeps a record of them. You get a summary on whatever rhythm suits you, daily at first and often weekly later, plus a way to reach them with urgent items.

Every so often it is worth stepping back. Are the hours right? Are there tasks that could move over now that the basics run well? Is anything being done that no longer needs doing? Raise those points with the service partner and agree changes in writing.

If you decide to stop, give notice as your terms require, then remove access and change any shared passwords.