FAQ

Here’s what sets HireHarbour apart from traditional virtual assistant services:

• Dedicated 3-Week Bootcamp

All HarbourX’s undergo a thorough 3-week training program before they are partnered with any client. Their comprehensive training includes both soft and hard skills, such as best practices for communication, time management, and training on tools such as ChatGPT to ensure that they always stay ahead of their game. All clients can provide additional training for their HarbourX to suit their requirements.

• Additional Flexibility

Get started with as little as 5 hours a week. We offer fractional recruitment with up to 40 hours per week that you can designate and use whenever you want. You can also cancel anytime with no notice across all HarbourX tiers, within your 1st month, and a month’s notice after your trial period.

• Success Management

Our HarbourX’s are overseen by expert customer success managers (or CSMs). This means that while you will get to enjoy direct communication with your HarbourX, you may also reach out to the appointed CSM at any time should you have any issues or concerns.

• Ongoing Training

All HarbourX’s receive ongoing training to continuously upskill and deliver the best standard for their clients. All training is provided and paid for by HireHarbour ensuring that all virtual assistants have the tools available to excel at their role. Finally, all our HarbourX’s can rely on our HireHarbour HQ team for additional support and guidance.

• We Go the Extra Mile

Our HarbourX’s are paid weekly and enjoy a lot of in-company benefits such as being able to join our annual, all-paid-for, off-site meet-ups, match-up bonuses, and many more!

We are not competing against them. Instead, we set ourselves apart by being a premium remote staffing solution that offers virtual assistant services on a fractional basis. In addition, our HarbourX’s are also overseen by customer success managers (or CSMs) and receive regular, ongoing training.
Our HarbourX’s are also overseen by customer success managers (or CSMs) and receive regular ongoing training and support. They have premium access to key personal assistant tools such as Asana, XERO, and Canva, among others as well.
Finally, they can rely on our experts to get consultations for specialized services such as copywriting and graphic design, as necessary.

Only HarbourAssociates and Partners will get a custom email domain. HarbourX assistants will come with @hireharbour.com email address.

Everyone will get a UK phone number.
You will be able to communicate with your HarbourAssistant via WhatsApp or their HireHarbour email.
If you’ve signed up for a HarbourAssociate or HarbourPartner, then you will be able to provide them with an email domain of your choice as well or choose to continue communicating with them via their HireHarbour email.

HarbourAssistants are required to stay within our recommended communication channels unless you employ them for over 20 hours per week.

On the other hand, our HarbourAssociates and Partners are allowed access to your preferred communication channels outside our service coverage. That said, you will need to pay for their membership and complete the set-up process on your own.

All team members will receive a phone number for your location (ie, if you are in the UK, they will receive a UK landline number).

Yes, but this is subject to our fair-use policy.
We understand that for most of our clients, no two weeks are the same, and different things tend to come up. That said, if you find yourself constantly exceeding your HarbourX hours, one of our customer success managers (or CSM) will reach out to discuss how we can better work together.

All our HarbourX’s can visit with prior approval from HireHarbour. We will provide free flights once a year for our HarbourPartners but you will need to pay for everything else.
You may request your HarbourAssistant or HarbourAssociate to visit you too, but you will have to cover their flights and other necessary expenses.

Yes, certainly. You can provide your bank details directly to your HarbourX, rest assured that your data is protected and HarbourXs went through thorough data security training, in addition to legal contracts signed to protect you. Alternatively, we have a special process where you make a deposit with HireHarbour so that all your payments will be made through us with a 5% fee on any deposit made with HireHarbour. This way, you won’t ever have to provide your financial information.

Only HarbourAssociates and Partners can provide support to your family and colleagues. That said, this practice will still be subject to our fair-use policy. For instance, your HarbourX should still follow the hours recommended in your contract.
You will be the sole delegator for your HarbourAssistant unless you have opted for 15 hours or more per week.

It’s best to ask our experts to help you determine the best HarbourX for you.

But in summary, HarbourAssistants are great if you require assistance with small ad-hoc tasks throughout the week. This is what we recommend to small business owners, solopreneurs, and individuals in high-pressure industries such as banking, finance, law, consulting, and high-growth start-ups.

HarbourAssociates are ideal if you need a virtual assistant with more experience to support you and your team members. This is what we recommend to SMEs, start-ups, and entrepreneurs.

Finally, HarbourPartners is best if you need a superstar employee who can lead projects independently and even manage teams and workflows for you. Since their role is a hybrid between an executive assistant and a Chief-of-Staff, we highly recommend them to business owners with more than 20 employees or individuals working in high-stress environments such as private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, lawyers, and others.

HarbourAssistants and HarbourAssociates get onboarded within 1-4 weeks. Meanwhile, HarbourPartners get onboarded within 1-2 months.
Please note, though, that these are our average timelines. There are instances when it takes us longer to onboard our HarbourX’s due to: 1) the number of our active clients in our pipeline; 2) we do not rush the process of our 3-week boot camp to ensure that we deliver only the best HarbourX to our clients; and 3) due to unforeseen circumstances.

Our HarbourAssistants handle a maximum of 5 clients. That said, we ensure that they are not overbooked to make way for adjustments. For instance, an average HarbourAssistant works 5 hours per week per client. This means that they have a fixed schedule of 25 hours of client work utilized, with 15 hours of their 40 contracted hours remaining to spare to allow for flexibility.

On the other hand, our HarbourAssociates and HarbourPartners usually handle 2 clients each.

We can arrange a full-time HarbourX to work exclusively for you. Just speak to our sales team about it and we’ll come up with a custom quote just for you.

Here’s our PDF guide on the different tasks and roles that HarbourX’s can do for you.

We will find a replacement HarbourX to the best of our ability (and availability!). Ultimately your HarbourX is akin to your team member, and these do come up.

For any planned vacation of a week or longer (which are approved by us first and then you), we can have a replacement HarbourX support you if that is something you require. Just let one of our CSMs know as soon as the leave has been granted to your dedicated HarbourX.

HarbourX’s work from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM of their client’s local business hours Monday to Friday. You can opt for a full-time HarbourX if you want to arrange a schedule that’s more suitable for you.

You don’t need to worry about anything. This happens.

We will first try to understand what the issue is and resolve it as best we can. Regardless, this information will prove crucial for us to find the HarbourX who’s more suitable to your needs and preferences.
For us at HireHarbour, communications is key. It is extremely important to us to maintain clear and open communication lines between us and the HarbourX, and between us and the client (you). As such, we have customer success managers (CSMs) to serve as the bridge between these channels.

We send out an optional weekly feedback form, all feedback is shared directly with the Harbourx so we can continuously improve our services.

The majority of our HarbourX’s are based in the Philippines. They are known for giving stellar BPO services and for being well-versed in working with UK, US, and Australian companies.

We will present you with a candidate that we feel is the best fit, however, if you are not satisfied after meeting them, happy for you to meet others.

There is an administrative onboarding fee that covers hiring, reference checks and training. For HarbourAssistants, it’s £99, for HarbourAssociates and HarbourPartners, it’s £199.

We conduct reference checks through a reputable third party agency who verifies employment history, education details, criminal records, as well as any other public records. We also generally prefer to hire through referrals. This way, most of our applicants are already primarily vetted by our team.

We have on-ground recruiters who are constantly looking for highly skilled talents. They screen 500 candidates per month using various methods such as headhunting, using job ad sites, etc.

Some of our candidates come from through our website as well. They find us through word-of-mouth thanks to HireHarbour’s credibility and goodwill within the VA community.

Our HarbourX’s undergo a rigorous screening process:
1. Initial Screening. We conduct initial CV and Loom video screenings for all our applicants.
2. Testing. Those who pass the first level of screening will then take three tests: a communication test, a personality test, and a problem-solving test.
3. Interview. Those who pass the second level of screening will then undergo a face-to-face interview with our dedicated in-house recruiter.
4. Case Study. The next step in our process is a 90-minute assignment that the applicant must pass. It is composed of three tasks that seek to replicate the pressure of their daily role working with high-demanding clients.
5. Final Interview. Finally, all applicants who have made it this far will undergo a final face-to-face interview with both founders of HireHarbour. Only around 1% of our applicants make it past this stage.

This means that all our HarbourXs meet our high standards and that they are carefully handpicked by the founders themselves before they are partnered up with any client.

We don’t actively track time per client, but if a client consistently takes too much time, then our HarbourX will raise a concern about this and work towards a more suitable arrangement together with a customer success manager (CSM).

Yes. We consider your first month as a trial period so cancel at any point with no cancellation period in the first month. Thereafter, we don’t require any lock-ins, so you are free to cancel your plan anytime with 1 month's notice.

Here’s a quick walkthrough of what you can expect the process to look like:
1. You meet with the HireHarbour team and we’ll discuss and determine the assistant services that you need.
2. We will search for the HarbourX who’s most suitable to your needs and preferences from our pool of vetted and trained talents.
3. Meet your HarbourX, and start the onboarding process.
4. Weekly feedback form to continuously improve our bespoke service to you.
5. Finally, our customer success managers will perform regular monthly check-ins to ensure that everything is going well and fine. Our HarbourX’s will also continue with their training and development at an ongoing basis.

We encourage you to make the most of your HarbourX experience. You can find out how to do that in our Playbook.

We will ensure that your service won’t be disrupted in any way to the best extent possible. We have vetted and trained HarbourX’s who are usually on standby for such cases. That said, it may take 2-3 weeks to find a suitable replacement if there aren’t any HarbourX’s in the pipeline.

Yes, absolutely! We’re always happy when our HarbourX’s provide such a level of client satisfaction. You may issue a bonus through us and all the proceeds will be payable to your HarbourX.
In addition, we also offer a bonus match-up benefit of up to:

• £50 per HarbourAssistant per year
• £100 per HarbourAssociate per year
• £250 per HarbourPartner per year

You will pay for our monthly subscription via a monthly direct debit that you can cancel anytime. Or you can also opt for a 1-year plan that can be paid upfront for added savings and convenience.

Annual subscribers will also receive an invoice.

We take care of all our HarbourX’s payouts.

We don’t have a minimum contract term. We offer monthly plans, so you are free to cancel anytime with 1 month's notice. You won’t need to provide notice when canceling your services in the 1st month (as we consider this a trial period).

We have different systems in place to ensure our clients’ cybersecurity.

Thanks, but data privacy is a REAL concern.‍
Yes, for us too! The good news is, countries like the Philippines (where most of our HarbourX’s are based from), have strict data laws. To safeguard the security of its outsourcing industry, the Philippine government has enacted strict regulations such as the Data Privacy Act.

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Under this Act, anyone violating privacy regulation can face imprisonment for up to 6 years and a hefty fine, starting from $20,000 to $100,000 USD!
In addition, we also have the following safety measures:
1. All our HarbourX’s enter into a strict non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
2. We have a payment system that won’t require you to provide your bank details. If someone from our team requests for your bank details, please don’t give them
away and report this to us immediately. You may send an email to: clientcare@hireharbour.com
3. We use secure password management platforms so you won’t ever have to provide your log in credentials. We highly recommend Dashlane if you prefer using your own password manager. However, you will need to manage your own account and pay for it.
4. Our HarbourX’s are given free, premium access to anti-virus software and VPN.
5. All our HarbourX’s are fully screened and vetted. They undergo comprehensive reference and background checks.

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That said, we still highly recommend checking out our terms and policies for more information,
especially when it comes to our liabilities.