Five Things You Didn’t Know An Answering Service For Attorneys Could Provide

By now you probably know the basics of what an answering service for attorneys has to offer. If not, you should give this blog post a read. It will get you caught up real fast!

What many lawyers might not know, is that a service like Answering Legal has a lot more to offer than just 24/7 live phone coverage. We take the time to train our virtual receptionist staff on performing just about any duty a normal in-house receptionist would be able to handle. This way we’re not only providing your law firm’s callers with live attention, but with an elite level of care as well.

Here are some features that we provide that tend to be a pleasant surprise to our attorney customers.

1- Text And Email Message Alerts

There’s no point in resisting the future. You should embrace being able to manage your entire law practice right from the smartphone in your pocket. Answering Legal can make the process of handling clients while away from the office even simpler. Our service will send you text and email messages recapping every call our receptionist team handles on your firm’s behalf.

Never again will you have to stress about incoming calls while you’re in the middle of a trial, or taking a break to enjoy dinner with the family. Our virtual receptionists will always be available to give your callers live attention, and will inform you via message what they need help with right after the call ends. You can casually check in on client messages, while never being forced to commit to a potentially lengthy phone call. If you do need to interrupt a work related task or personal time to call a client back, you’ll know it’s for a really good reason.

2- Full Legal Intake

Performing new client intakes can be time-consuming and tedious. If you or other lawyers at your firm are often forced to handle them, we’re guessing it’s far from your favorite part of the job. Unfortunately, legal intake really isn’t something you can ignore without risking making a poor impression on your new leads and losing out on potential clients.

The good news for attorneys is that our virtual receptionist team has been extensively trained on performing the legal intake process, and is available to handle it on a law firm’s behalf at any time. Our receptionists will offer your prospects a warm greeting, then take them through an intake script featuring customized questions of your choosing. When setting up your Answering Legal account with one of our account executives, you’ll let us know exactly what information we should be collecting from your new leads. All of the intake information we do collect gets sent over to lawyers via text and email message right after the call concludes.

3- Live Call Transferring

Sometimes lawyers can’t afford to wait till later to speak with clients. Often, offering a real time response is the difference between a prospect choosing your firm over a competitor’s. The problem is you never know when exciting new leads will be reaching out to your practice, and many of the calls you do end up providing an immediate response to are far from urgent.

The best way to avoid getting stuck on the phone all day long is to let our virtual receptionist team screen calls first on your behalf. You can let our staff know under which conditions you’d like the opportunity to be contacted for a live call transfer request. For example, if you want the chance to speak with all first-time callers to your firm in real time, we can reach out to your preferred line whenever our receptionists identify one. We’ll then ask you if you want the call transferred over to you or if you prefer our virtual receptionist handle their client intake process on your behalf. Those working in time sensitive fields of law (ex: criminal defense attorneys) really can’t afford to be without this invaluable feature.

4- Appointment Scheduling

Some attorneys are very protective of their work calendars, and don’t want anyone else touching it. Others will gladly let someone else handle appointment scheduling for them if it means they get to spend less time on the phone. One thing that Answering Legal provides all lawyers is more options for how they handle their calendaring.

Our service provides all law firms with optional appointment scheduling. If you don’t want our virtual receptionists touching your calendar, we’ll make sure they don’t, and we’ll simply let you follow up with callers yourself to book meeting times. If you would like to take advantage of our appointment scheduling capabilities, it’s easy to do so. Our service easily integrates with most calendaring softwares, giving our virtual receptionists the ability to access your schedule while speaking with your callers. You can let our staff know which time slots in your calendar are available for appointment booking, and we’ll alert you whenever we book a meeting with a caller on your behalf.

5- Bilingual Phone Answering

Data shows that the Spanish speaking population in the United States has been growing fast over the past few decades. This of course means there are more client opportunities for law offices that are able to communicate in both English and Spanish. If your firm would like to serve more Spanish speaking clients in your area, but has struggled to overcome language barrier issues in the past, our answering service for attorneys can be of great assistance.

Many members of our receptionist team speak Spanish as a first language, and because of this, we are able to provide 24/7 bilingual phone answering services. Anytime a Spanish speaking individual calls your company, one of our receptionists will be there to make the customer feel welcome, and allow them to engage in the language they are most comfortable with. Our bilingual phone answering capabilities could help you gain countless new clients, and allow you to become a go-to legal resource for a large portion of your community.

Now that you got the inside scoop on all our service can provide, it’s time to start taking advantage of all these great features. To get started with your 7-day free trial of Answering Legal, simply fill out this form or call us at 631-686-9700 with any questions.