Sarah compared two virtual executive assistant companies side by side. One quoted $1,200 USD a month. The other quoted $1,997 USD as a one-time fee plus a market-rate salary. She picked the cheaper monthly number without asking a single question about vetting, retention, or what happened if the hire didn’t work out. Four months later, her assistant quit, the agency replaced her with someone requiring a full second onboarding, and the “cheaper” option had cost more in re-training hours than the flat fee would have. This article is the checklist Sarah didn’t use, built around the questions that actually predict whether a company delivers.
Key Takeaways for Business Leaders
- Quality management pioneer W. Edwards Deming’s famous line, “In God we trust, all others must bring data,” is the right standard for evaluating a vendor: ask for retention numbers and vetting evidence, not marketing language.
- Direct-hire and agency-managed models carry different lock-in risk, a pattern Nobel-winning economist Oliver Williamson’s research on contract design explains directly.
- Industry research on outsourcing relationships has repeatedly found that a large share of engagements underperform client expectations, most often because vetting was rushed and success metrics were never defined upfront.
- The single most predictive question you can ask a vendor is their retention rate, followed closely by what happens, contractually, if a placement doesn’t work out.
- Procurement professionals use structured supplier evaluation frameworks for exactly this kind of decision, and the same framework applies directly to choosing a talent vendor.
- Price is the least reliable signal in this decision. A lower monthly rate with no vetting rigor and no replacement guarantee is very often the more expensive choice within a year.
What Should You Actually Look For in a Virtual Executive Assistant Company?
Demand Evidence, Not Marketing Claims
Every company in this space will describe itself as thorough, reliable, and rigorous about screening candidates. Almost none of them will hand you a specific number when you ask what percentage of their placements are still in place after a year. That single question separates a company with real process discipline from one relying on adjectives.
The Deming Standard: “In God We Trust, All Others Must Bring Data”
Quality management pioneer W. Edwards Deming is widely credited with the line, “In God we trust, all others must bring data,” a standard he applied to manufacturing quality control but one that transfers directly to vendor selection. Ask for the retention rate. Ask for the average placement timeline. Ask what the replacement policy actually says, in writing, not as a verbal reassurance. A company confident in its process will have these numbers ready immediately.
Direct-Hire vs Agency-Managed: Which Model Should You Choose?
How Each Model Actually Works
An agency-managed model keeps the assistant employed by the agency, which bills you a recurring markup for the life of the placement, typically 15% to 20% on top of the assistant’s pay, every month, indefinitely. A direct-hire model charges a one-time recruitment fee, after which the assistant works directly for you, with no recurring markup.
Williamson’s Asset Specificity and the Lock-In Risk of Recurring Agency Contracts
Economist Oliver Williamson, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009, extended transaction cost theory with a concept called asset specificity: the more a working relationship depends on knowledge and trust built up over time- exactly what happens between an executive and an assistant- the more costly it becomes to walk away from that relationship, a dynamic Williamson called the hold-up problem. An agency-managed model can exploit this directly: once your assistant has a year of accumulated context about your business, switching agencies means losing that context entirely, which locks you into paying the recurring markup indefinitely rather than risking the switch. A direct-hire model removes this leverage structurally, since you’re not tied to the agency once the placement is made.
What Questions Should You Ask a Virtual Executive Assistant Company Before Hiring?
Questions About the Vetting Process
Ask exactly what candidates are screened for, and expect specific traits in the answer, not a general claim of “thorough screening.” A company that can name the specific competencies it tests- business acumen, discretion, communication, proactive support, for example- is describing a real process. A company that says “we only hire the best” is describing nothing measurable.
Questions About Retention and Replacement Guarantees
Ask for the retention rate as a specific number, and ask what the replacement guarantee covers: how many months, how many replacement attempts, and whether there’s an additional fee involved. A written guarantee with clear terms is worth far more than a verbal assurance that “we’ll take care of it if something goes wrong.”
Questions About Time Zone and Regional Sourcing
Ask which countries the company sources from and why. A vague answer, “we have talent everywhere,” is weaker than a specific one tied to your actual business hours, for example, sourcing from South Africa specifically for its GMT+2 overlap with UK and European clients, or from the Philippines for US and Australian shift alignment.
What Are Red Flags When Choosing an Outsourcing Company?
A Real Example: Choosing on Price Alone
Sarah’s mistake wasn’t picking the cheaper option in isolation; it was picking it without asking a single question that would have surfaced the difference in what she was actually buying. The agency-managed company she chose had no published retention rate, described its vetting process only as “rigorous,” and offered a replacement “at our discretion” rather than a specific written guarantee. Every one of those should have been a red flag before she signed anything.
Vague Retention Numbers and No Replacement Policy
Treat any of the following as a genuine warning sign: a company that won’t share a retention rate, a replacement policy described verbally rather than in the contract, vetting criteria described only in adjectives, and pricing that seems low relative to competitors without an explanation for why, since an unusually low rate often means either weaker vetting or a business model that depends on high turnover.
How Do You Evaluate a Company’s Vetting Process?
What Real Vetting Looks Like, Based on Procurement Best Practice
The Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, a globally recognized professional body for procurement and supplier management, teaches structured supplier evaluation built around defined criteria scored consistently across every candidate vendor, rather than an informal impression formed during a sales call. Applied to hiring a virtual executive assistant company, this means asking the same specific questions of every company you compare, and scoring the answers against each other directly, rather than picking whichever sales conversation felt the most reassuring.
CIPS’s Supplier Evaluation Framework Applied to Talent Vendors
A simple version of this framework: score each company on vetting specificity, retention rate, replacement terms, regional fit for your time zone, and total cost including any recurring fees, then compare the scored totals rather than a gut impression. This turns a subjective decision into a defensible, repeatable one, exactly the outcome structured procurement evaluation is designed to produce.
Why Most Outsourcing Relationships Underperform, and How to Avoid It
What Industry Research Says About Outsourcing Failure Rates
Industry research on outsourcing relationships, including surveys from major consulting and analyst firms covering the sector, has repeatedly found that a substantial share of outsourcing engagements fail to meet the client’s original expectations. The most commonly cited reason isn’t the quality of available talent; it’s that vetting was rushed, and success metrics were never clearly defined before the relationship began.
The Fix: Clear Success Metrics Defined Before You Sign
Define what success looks like before you hire, not after: specific KPIs, a specific timeline for full productivity, and a specific process for addressing performance concerns. A vendor willing to agree to these terms in writing before the contract is signed is demonstrating exactly the confidence Deming’s standard calls for. A vendor who resists defining success metrics upfront is telling you something important about how the relationship will go if something does go wrong.
A Practical Evaluation Checklist
- Retention rate: ask for the specific number, in writing
- Replacement guarantee: get the exact terms, including duration and any added cost
- Vetting criteria: ask for specific traits tested, not general adjectives
- Regional sourcing rationale: ask why that country, tied to your specific time zone needs
- Pricing model: understand whether it’s a one-time fee or a recurring markup, and calculate the two-year total cost of each
- Success metrics: agree on specific KPIs and a productivity timeline before signing
How Exec Assistants Measures Up Against This Checklist
Exec Assistants publishes a retention rate exceeding 93% across placements, backs every direct-hire placement with a replacement guarantee in the early months, screens every candidate specifically for business acumen, proactive support, discretion, and communication, and sources specifically from South Africa and the Philippines based on time zone fit with UK, US, European, and Australian clients. Run this exact checklist against Exec Assistants and against any other company you’re comparing, and book a discovery call to get the specific numbers in writing rather than a general reassurance. Review the virtual executive assistant page for the full vetting criteria, or the About Us page for the team’s combined 25 years of hiring experience behind that retention rate.