Feedback is not the most comfortable part of remote work. No virtual assistant wants to feel like they aren’t doing a perfect job—including me—but feedback throws the facts right in your face. However, it’s something every VA who wants to be truly useful to their company or client must get used to—and even look forward to.
VAs need regular feedback for many reasons. Pointing out any areas that require corrections helps to improve outcomes. Feedback also allows VAs to work confidently, as they better understand a task’s specifications afterward. And when properly implemented, it makes the client trust the VA more for future tasks.
As you read on, I’ll share more about the topic, including the goals of feedback, examples, tools for giving feedback, and, most importantly, how to provide feedback to VAs.
The Common Challenge: Communication Gaps In Remote Teams
Even though I live in Nigeria, I work alongside people from Kenya, India, Algeria, Vietnam, and the Philippines. This means that with some of my colleagues, I share a time difference of up to 7 hours.
Besides our time zone differences, we perceive things differently based on our environments; for example, “a short time” could mean 2 minutes to me but 20 minutes to someone else from a different country. Also, how we communicate with each other varies widely. Some of us prefer to keep things vague and let the recipient decode the meaning, while others keep it straight to the point.
With all these differences, several issues pop up. Team members might think they’ve explained themselves clearly when others actually need more context or examples. Not responding, which might mean “I’m busy” to one person, could come across as “I’m ignoring you” to another. And different understandings of what “good quality” means can lead to uneven outputs across the team.
However, when feedback is given correctly, it helps to bridge these communication gaps. Expectations are clarified so everyone defines “good work” the same way, and teammates learn each other’s communication preferences and adjust accordingly.
Understanding The Goal Of Feedback
Feedback is the only way a VA can really determine if a client is satisfied with their work and know how to improve results. Its purpose is to clarify points that are missed or misunderstood and to help the VA grow, whether as a professional or as part of the business they work with.
Some VAs see feedback as a way to pass the blame. However, that’s a wrong view. Seeing it through this mindset makes one defensive rather than receptive to helpful feedback. Feedback also has to be delivered correctly to avoid being perceived as what it’s not.
We can rightly divide good feedback into two kinds: positive reinforcement and constructive correction. Both serve different purposes. By the way, I said “good” because there are some forms of feedback that I don’t consider ideal.
Positive reinforcement is the kind we all love. “Great job delivering that report early. Your time management really helped the team stay on track.” This kind of feedback is given when clients notice impressive results and want to encourage the VA to keep it up, and it is easy to deliver without being misinterpreted.
Then there’s constructive feedback. This kind does three things. First, it points out specific issues in the result. Then it gives specific steps to improve outcomes. And it does all these in a respectful and supportive manner. “Your presentation had solid data, but the slides were a bit text-heavy. Try using more visuals next time. It’ll make your points clearer.”
No matter the type of feedback, the main goal of feedback in a remote work setting remains to improve results and strengthen collaboration between clients and VAs.
Preparing To Give Feedback
Proper preparation helps you give helpful feedback. Here are a few things to do before providing feedback.
Review and gather specific pointers
The first step is to review the task thoroughly. If it’s a recurring task, it helps to have a checklist you can easily use to cover the most important aspects of the task during review. A scrutiny of the deliverable helps prevent multiple sendbacks because you missed certain things during the initial review.
As you review, gather specific points that need to change. Don’t just point to “the visuals” as the problem when reviewing a video. Is it the text overlay that fades too quickly at 0:35 or the transition at 1:10 that doesn’t introduce the next scene smoothly? Be specific.
Choose the right time and channel
Two things that can make or break feedback are timing and channels. First, you want to give feedback as soon as possible so the VA can easily recall the task and connect it to specific actions. You should also consider their time zones, especially if you want to do it over a call, so it doesn’t feel intrusive on their personal time.
Feedback should match the channels through which it’s being communicated. While some require just a few lines of text, others may require a more detailed explanation, which can be sent as an email. Sometimes, a meeting is the best option, especially when you need to show illustrations or share feedback in real time.
Keep emotions neutral
When sharing feedback, keep your emotions in check. This can be easy to do over text and email, because you have the comfort of reviewing your message for tone and missteps, but it may be harder in a real-time meeting, so prepare for that. Remember to keep the focus on the outcome, not on personal traits.
You might be annoyed because you have high expectations, but give them the benefit of the doubt at least initially. Clearly and calmly explain the issues. How you communicate actually makes a difference. Be assertive yet respectful.
How To Deliver Feedback Effectively
Start with positives (only if there are any)
Many people, drawing from the sandwich approach, will advise that feedback begins with something positive. To that, I’ll add a suffix: only if there’s something positive to talk about.
In some cases, parts of the outcome are satisfactory, while others are not. Maybe your customer support VA responds to inquiries on time, but doesn’t always use the most appropriate tone. In such a situation, you can mention the positive aspects of their work to set a friendly tone for your feedback.
However, if everything is done poorly, you don’t need to come up with forced positives. It will minimize the weight of their issues or make your feedback feel insincere.
Be specific and constructive
With the positives out of the way, it’s time to cover the parts that need improvement. One by one, mention each issue in detail. Then help them out with a solution. Being specific helps the recipient know what you’re referring to, and being constructive guides them on what to do next.
Here’s an example: “The client email lacked a call-to-action. Next time, include one like ‘Please confirm by Friday’ so the client knows the next step.” The issue identified is a missing call to action, and an example of how to handle it in the future is provided.
Encourage dialogue
Even though the example given above seems straightforward, you may be surprised that your VA may not understand it. They may go on to draft another email, only for you to realize they’re repeating the same mistake. That’s why you must take an extra step to make sure they understand you well, and one way to do so is to encourage them to ask questions or let you know if they need more clarity. Their questions will help you determine how best to re-explain the issue to them so they can better understand it.
End on motivation
No matter how well you package your feedback, many VAs still struggle to handle it well, so a little encouragement at the end goes a long way. Just saying “I believe in you” or “you can do it” goes a long way toward reinforcing their belief in themselves and could be all the motivation they need to give their best effort.
Examples Of Good Feedback vs. Poor Feedback
To make my point clearer, I’ll show you a few examples of poor feedback, a good one, and what makes one better than the other.
Handling Repeated Issues
What if you’ve given feedback before, and the issues still keep recurring? Here’s how you can handle it.
Stay calm and focus on the patterns
Repeated errors are frustrating. You’re trying to focus on high-value work but still find yourself dealing with the same issue from your VA. You may be tempted to label your VA as “dull”, “slow”, or “not creative”, but resist that urge. Instead, keep your focus on the patterns. That’s what is within your control.
Use private, respectful communication
As you focus on the patterns, communicate them to your VA in a clear and respectful way. It’s better to keep conversations like this private. Your VA may feel embarrassed if you point out their repeated mistake in a group chat or a meeting where other VAs are praised, which can make them defensive. It can also make them perceive your work environment as hostile.
Ask questions to understand causes
Asking them questions about why they keep underperforming can help you assist them in improving. They may tell you that things are still unclear to them, or they may explain that their available resources limit their ability to achieve the best results. Just imagine a writer who keeps sending articles with lines marked as plagiarized. However, all they need to perform better is just a premium subscription on a platform like Grammarly.
Offer retraining or clearer guidelines
If your VA shows promise of improvement, it’s a great idea to retrain them or restructure your guidelines to be easier to understand. When you talk with them about your guidelines, you can identify which ones seem unclear to them and find a way to present them more clearly. You can even invite their input on rewriting the instructions—after all, they’re the ones applying them daily.
Let them know if they are not improving
At the end of the day, there’s only so much you can do. If you have spoken with them calmly and privately, asked them questions regarding their performance, and retrained them, and they are still not improving, you should let them know. You can explore shifting them to another task where they may perform better, or let them go.
How Often Should You Give Feedback?
There’s no set-in-stone method for timing VA feedback. How often you give feedback will depend on your industry and the kind of tasks you perform. A graphic designer or content writer may get instant feedback for every image or article they create, but a customer care assistant may receive feedback weekly or bi-weekly. However, I can provide some practices you can use to keep feedback effective.
If your VA’s work isn’t tied to measurable outputs—for example, a customer care rep who handles live chats with customers—regular check-ins are essential. Agree on a feedback schedule, and save all your feedback for that period. You can also offer guidance from time to time when you notice errors that can’t wait, but the check-ins will tackle most of the challenges.
However, if deliverables are quantifiable, like a video editor’s finished projects, giving feedback on each task submitted is a great way to go about it. No point setting dates for check-ins when you can correct the issues right away. Delayed corrections only slow your progress.
Besides these two, you also need periodic performance reviews to assess whether your feedback has led to improvements in their work. These can happen once a quarter, but for a new VA, it shouldn’t take so long—maybe once a month.
The two instances first mentioned let you provide short, ongoing feedback rather than saving it all for one big performance review, while the third enables you to conduct a broader, non-task-based review.
Tools That Make Feedback Easier
Some of your basic work tools can also be used to share feedback.
Loom is a tool we often use at Klarecon to create video walkthroughs. If I perform a task today and it’s so poor that typing won’t be enough to address all the issues, a manager can simply record a video pointing out all the problems with voice and visuals, upload it to Loom, and share the link with me. This will make it easier for me to understand the feedback. Plus, it can serve as a video instructional material for the next person to perform a similar task.
Google Docs’ comments option allows text comments that highlight the problematic aspects of a task. When the VA implements the feedback, they can respond to the comments and wait for the manager’s approval or rejection. Project management tools like ClickUp and Monday also have a similar setup. And if the feedback is light and doesn’t require documentation, a chat app like WhatsApp or Telegram works perfectly.
Building A Feedback Culture
You want your operations to be a space where feedback is seen as healthy and normal. There are many steps to make that happen, but I’ll share a few here.
First, encourage open two-way feedback. You shouldn’t just bombard VAs with your ideas; you should also see what they think about certain aspects of the tasks you assign to them. Sometimes, their way is the better option, but if you don’t give them a chance to explain it to you, you will miss out on it.
Take an example of a video editor who sends an 80-second ad to the client. The client feels it’s too short and would prefer it to be over 100 seconds. However, the VA explains that videos longer than 90 seconds can’t be sponsored on major platforms like Instagram. They may eventually settle for 89 seconds. Just by listening to the VA, the client has saved themselves from ending up with an unpromotable ad video.
You can also mention it to VAs when you notice improvements in their work. Just a simple, “I love how well you now merge your paragraphs,” is enough—no gifts needed.
Letting VAs share their thoughts and recognizing their improvements makes them feel seen and respected. If they’ve worked with clients who didn’t treat them this way, you will quickly earn their loyalty. Plus, acknowledging their opinions and wins helps them become more confident assistants who can deliver your tasks faster, since they feel sure of themselves.
Feedback As A Partnership Tool
Clients should learn how to provide feedback to VAs, and both parties should see it as a helpful tool for a great partnership. Managing remote assistants becomes far easier when this happens. Through feedback, clients can direct outcomes, and VAs can adjust their strategies to better serve the client, which is why they were hired in the first place. Instead of seeing it as a way for clients to control VAs, we should see it as a way for both parties to collaborate to achieve a specified goal.
