Five Things Lawyers Can Achieve By Using An Answering Service For Attorneys

Spring is underway, and it’s a time to be hopeful! While 2020 was a year in which we were mostly forced to put our goals on pause and be patient, 2021 is the time for us to start doing big things again. And if you want to see significant improvement in your legal life this year, there’s no better way to spark it than by signing up with an answering service for attorneys.

There’s just so much lawyers can achieve with the support of a 24/7 phone answering service like Answering Legal. In this blog post, we’ll let you know about all that’s possible when you start working with our virtual receptionist team.

1- A Near 100% New Lead Conversion Rate

Let us throw a few facts your way.

Answering Legal provides lawyers with non-stop 24/7 phone coverage, meaning that your firm’s callers will always get to speak with a live representative of your firm, no matter what time they call in.

Answering Legal also has a highly trained team of virtual receptionists, all of which are experts in taking new leads through the legal intake process.

So with all of this being the case, law firms that use our service really have no excuse to let even a single one of their new leads slip away.

If a prospect calls your firm, and you want to work with them, our virtual receptionists are going to make sure you have the best possible chance to make that happen. When you can’t get to the phone yourself to speak with a new lead, one of our receptionists will be there to offer them a warm greeting, collect their information and let them know that help is on the way. Callers to your firm will always walk away from their initial call to your firm feeling confident, and won’t feel compelled to start calling around with your competition.

We say “near 100% new lead conversion rate”, because we know that sometimes things happen that are out of a firm’s control when it comes to capturing new business. But we feel pretty confident that our answering service for attorneys can get that percentage up into the high 90s for your firm, which could mean a lot more incoming cash for your business.

2- A Better Understanding Of Whether Your Marketing Is Working

If you’re not seeing your marketing campaigns translate into many clients, your first instinct is probably to blame the advertisements you put together. But one of the biggest reasons firms end up seeing their marketing campaigns fail, is because they do a poor job of capturing the new leads their ads generate.

Ideally a great marketing campaign will have your firm’s phones ringing non-stop. But just because a new lead calls into your firm, doesn’t mean they are married to the idea of hiring you. In fact, if you don’t answer the phone live on a prospect’s first call to your practice, there’s a very good chance they’ll immediately move onto calling another lawyer.

So in theory, your marketing could be doing a great job, and you’d never know because you aren’t picking up the phone. Sloppy legal intake work is another thing that could be scaring off your potential clients, which is why it's always best to have professionals take care of the process on your behalf.

Now we’re not saying that your marketing definitely isn’t the problem. We’re just saying there’s a chance it's not, and you’ll never know for sure if you're dropping the ball on the lead capturing side of things. Using Answering Legal will help firms make sure they’re always getting the most out of their marketing spend.

Read More: See the latest edition of our “Let’s Talk Legal Marketing” blog series!

3- Improved Overall Health

Last October, Answering Legal released a guide to lawyer wellness, which brings awareness to several of the mental health issues that plague the legal community, and spotlights some of the organizations that can help. While assembling this piece it became quite clear that feeling burnt out and overworked is at the heart of many attorney wellness issues. This is of course another area where our answering service for attorneys can be of significant help.

We’ve already covered just how damaging it can be for lawyers to let their incoming calls go to voicemail. No attorney wants to see clients pass them by. And without the help of a service like ours, they’re essentially forced to be on call for their firm 24/7. This will often mean sacrificing a great deal of sleep and personal time to attend to incoming phone calls.

It is incredibly important for lawyers to have time away from their work, otherwise they will see occupational burnout and stress take a toll on their quality of life. Fortunately services like Answering Legal are around to take over an attorney’s call handling responsibilities whenever they feel like they need a break. We’ll always be there to let your clients know your firm cares for them, and we’ll keep you updated on new client requests by sending you text and email messages throughout the day.

Attorneys will be able to monitor new messages right from their smartphones, and will only have to hop on a phone call when something really worth their time comes up. The end result of this will be less reasons to stress and more free time to spend with the people you care about most.

4- More 5-Star Reviews And Referrals

In the digital age, online reviews play a significant role in a firm’s ability to draw in future clients. If a lawyer has a high percentage of five-star reviews, prospective clients will feel a lot more comfortable reaching out to them for help. If a law office has a ton of poor reviews or almost no reviews at all, gaining the trust of new leads will be almost impossible.

Attorneys that start using our service should see a steady improvement to the state of their online reputation, as our receptionist team will provide a big boost to the client experience they are able to provide. Your clients and new leads will always feel like they’re being heard and having their needs attended to, because you’ll always be giving them a live professional receptionist to talk to when you’re not around. Our message taking system will also make it easy for lawyers to know when someone needs urgent attention and they need to get on the phone right away.

The clients you end up providing a high quality experience for are likely to leave you glowing reviews online, and also tell all of their family and friends about your firm. And when those people end up needing a lawyer, you’ll be their first call. With the legal marketing world being as unpredictable as it is, growing firms can never have enough referral business.

5- More Vacation Time

Remember traveling? Well hopefully soon enough we’ll be back to taking vacations around the world more regularly. And when the time does come for your next big trip, you’ll want Answering Legal around to cover your phones. While you’re away, you can forward your calls to our service full-time, meaning that incoming calls to your practice will always ring on our phone lines first and be immediately picked up by one of our virtual receptionists.

During your vacation, you can occasionally check in on the messages we send you, while still avoiding getting on phone calls for the majority of your time away. We should mention that Answering Legal is great for staycations too!

There’s no limit to what you can achieve with the help of our answering service for attorneys. Get started with a free 7-day trial of Answering Legal now by filling out this form or calling us at 631-686-9700.