E-commerce & retail
Someone to answer customers while you sleep
Support tickets do not respect your trading hours, and neither does a stockout. The overnight shift most Western businesses cannot staff is an ordinary working day in Manila.
Handed over first
- Live chat and email support
- Order issues, returns and refunds
- Product listing and catalogue upkeep
- Inventory monitoring and reordering
- Supplier correspondence
- Social content and scheduling
Who you’d hire
Customer Support Rep, Shopify Admin, Social Media Manager
Admin & Support
L.First name available once verified
Executive Assistant
Runs the calendar, the inbox and the follow-ups you keep forgetting
$1,050/mo
4 yrs · Bacolod
Admin & Support
A.First name available once verified
Virtual Assistant
The general-purpose hire that takes the first twenty hours off you
$800/mo
7 yrs · Iloilo
Admin & Support
C.First name available once verified
Virtual Assistant
The general-purpose hire that takes the first twenty hours off you
$1,050/mo
10 yrs · Davao
The one you’ll ask
Will customers know they're talking to an offshore team?
Some will, and it stops mattering quickly if the answer is fast and correct. We screen hard on written English because in support it is the entire job. If your brand voice matters, brief it in the first week and hold them to it.
How it works
Three weeks, three steps, three candidates
You spend about two hours on this in total. We spend about ninety.
- 0115 minutes
Tell us what you need off your plate
A call, or a form if you'd rather not talk. We're working out the actual job, not filling in a template. Most owners describe tasks, not roles. That's fine, that's our job to translate.
- 02About 12 days
Meet three people, not thirty
We advertise, screen and test. You get three shortlisted candidates with skills-test results, reference checks and a short intro video each. You interview whoever you want. You can reject all three and we go again.
- 03Week three
They start, and we stay
We handle the contract, the onboarding checklist and the first-week setup. Then we check in at 30, 60 and 90 days, because the hires that fail, fail in the first quarter, and almost always for reasons somebody could have fixed.
No pitch deck. We’ll tell you if you’re not ready to hire.
Pricing
Same two options, whatever you do
Direct Hire
You employ them. We find them.
one-time, per hire
Plus your VA’s salary, paid to them.
Best if you already run a team and just need the right person.
- We source, screen and shortlist 3 candidates
- Skills tests and reference checks done before you meet anyone
- You interview and choose. You can say no to all three
- Contract and onboarding templates provided
- 6-month replacement guarantee
- You pay your VA directly, at whatever you agree
- –Payroll handled by you
- –You are the manager
Managed
We employ them. You just work with them.
per month, per person. Placement fee waived
Plus your VA’s salary, paid to them.
Best if this is your first hire, or you don't want to run payroll in another country.
- Everything in Direct Hire, with no placement fee
- We employ them, run payroll and handle local compliance
- Equipment, backup internet and power sorted
- Cover arranged when they're sick or on leave
- A named account manager who checks in monthly
- Cancel with 30 days' notice, no lock-in
Everything else owners ask
Usually one of three things happened: they were hired off a marketplace with no screening, they were given tasks but no context, or nobody managed them. The first is ours to fix. The second and third are the reason we do a 30/60/90 check-in and hand you an onboarding plan rather than just an email address.
It's a fair question and the answer depends entirely on the rate. The people on our bench earn two to three times the Philippine market rate for their role, get paid on time, and get a real contract. That's not charity. Underpaid people leave, and a replacement costs you more than the difference ever saved.
Manila is ahead of the US and roughly aligned with Australia. Most of our people work either your morning or your overnight, and many prefer the shift. If your work genuinely needs someone live at 4pm New York time, say so early. Some candidates will and some won't, and we'd rather know before you interview them.
Then don't hire one. Part-time placements are common and cost proportionally less. The honest test: if you can't list 20 hours of recurring weekly work right now, you're not ready, and we'll tell you that instead of taking your fee.
Nobody does. That's why we ask you to record a handful of screen-shares rather than write documentation. Talking through what you already do takes an afternoon. Your VA turns those into the written process, which is a task they should be doing anyway.
You can, and for a small one-off task you probably should. The difference is screening and risk: we run skills tests and reference checks across a few hundred applicants for each role, and if the hire doesn't work we replace them free for six months. On a marketplace, that's all yours.
Next step
Stop being the only person who can do it
Fifteen minutes, no pitch. Tell us what your week looks like and we’ll tell you honestly whether a hire fixes it.
Or email us, hello@menaitalentconsultants.com