Give Yourself The Gift Of A Virtual Receptionist This Holiday Season

With Thanksgiving behind us, the holiday season is in full swing. It’s a time of rest and spending time with family for professionals all over the U.S., as many people head home or take time off to relax until the new year.

Unfortunately, for many lawyers, it isn’t possible to take weeks away from your firm. The smaller your firm, the truer this becomes. Legal issues don’t take time off, after all, and without someone else to pick up the slack, attorneys are often left working through the holiday season.

With a virtual receptionist for lawyers on your team, however, you really can take some well-deserved time off. In the blog post below, we’ll dive into just how a virtual receptionist can make it possible for you to relax in the upcoming holidays.

Exchange Your Clients’ Worries For Comfort

Even though many court systems slow down over the holidays, client problems don’t. From calling to report new developments to inquiring about updates, lawyers spend a lot of time every day speaking with their clients over the phone.

Studies have shown that attorneys spend an average of 1.1 hours a day talking to clients on the phone.

Those hours add up, and over the holiday season, turning off your phone will result in a lot of unhappy clients! The holidays are a stressful and expensive time of year, so any attorney serving legal consumers will have anxious clients calling throughout the weeks of so-called rest.

For business-facing firms, similarly, the holidays can often be a busy time of year for your clients, full of legal needs that might pop up at any moment, or a slow time that might prove ideal to solve some long-standing legal issue.

Handling these calls during the holiday season can be difficult. Boundaries are important—putting clients first doesn’t have to mean sacrificing all of your own time—but making sure your clients feel heard is just important if not moreso. Ensuring your clients can reach you if they need you is a big part of making sure their experience with your firm is top-notch; but being constantly available to new client concerns, many of which are not always urgent needs, is a sure-fire way to make sure you don’t have any time for yourself over the holidays.

With a virtual receptionist for lawyers answering for your firm, you won’t have to interrupt time with the family to handle client calls. A virtual receptionist will field all of your incoming calls, only alerting you to emergency situations. Otherwise, the receptionist will take a message, and your clients’ concerns will be easily reviewed via text or email, so you can respond when you have the time, wherever you are. You’ll be able to spend time as you would like to over the holidays without sacrificing client satisfaction.

Unwrap Opportunities Over The Holidays

In the introduction to this blog, we noted that legal issues don’t take time off. To many attorneys, this concept will produce a knowing nod or a frustrated groan; it can seem like you never get a chance to relax, when a new client could be calling at any time. The other half of “legal issues don’t take time off”, however, is an opportunity. For attorneys willing to put in a little work, the stress of the holiday season can prove lucrative.

For personal injury attorneys, at least, the holidays are tied with the summer months for the busiest time of year.

Of course, that work goes against taking the holidays as a time to rest. You’ll have to be available to answer your phone whenever it rings, even if you’d rather be doing something else. You’ll have to be willing to meet with clients who need a little more reassurance before they hire you. Sure, it might pay off, but for attorneys looking to take a few weeks easy in the last part of the year, the cost might be too great.

Unless, that is, you hire a virtual receptionist for lawyers. With 24/7 coverage 365 days a year, virtual receptionist services that specialize in answering for lawyers will be able to provide your firm with exactly what you need to secure a few extra clients during what might be a busy time of year, depending on your practice area.

A Virtual Receptionist Is The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Virtual receptionists can perform legal intakes, highly increasing the likelihood that a new client will hire your firm without you speaking to them. Of course, everyone who calls a law firm wants to speak to a lawyer. Failing that, however, they want to feel like they’ve made a step toward resolving their issue.

Telling their side of the story to a virtual receptionist during a legal intake, then being assured they’ll hear from you soon, will satisfy that desire, enough that your lead capture rate will steadily rise without your involvement. If you’d like to see how our virtual receptionists handle legal intake, click here.

In the case of a legal intake, you might have to follow up to seal the deal. But the best virtual receptionists for lawyers can also schedule appointments for your firm, based on your calendar availability. If undergoing a legal intake is often enough to satisfy a prospective client, having an appointment to speak with an attorney is even more effective at making sure they stick with your firm.

At the end of a phone call with a virtual receptionist, your new leads will feel like they’ve already hired your phone, without ever having spoken to you, so you can enjoy some time with the family over the holidays without abandoning your firm’s revenue prospects for a month.

Spend Your Time On What Matters Most

For a moment, forget about your firm. Forget that you’re a law firm owner, running a business that you feel won’t survive without you.

The coming weeks are going to be filled with family and friends—people you probably don’t see as often as you would like. They’re going to want to spend time with you, and you with them. This opportunity, a time when everyone sets aside work as much as they can to spend time with their loved ones, only comes once a year. If you had a few weeks off, what would you do with all that extra time?

The holidays are a time to focus on the things that matter most to you. They can be stressful for everyone, even without legal issues, even if you’re not working.

Research into American sleep habits show that eight in ten people feel increased stress during the holidays, and that 28.2 percent of people get less sleep because of that stress.

A virtual receptionist for lawyers will allow you to just relax, no matter what you’re doing. If you really need to work you can do so without interruption, knowing your phones are answered and your clients aren’t ignored. If you’re spending time with your family, you can truly focus on them without worrying about your business languishing without you.

Answering Legal Is The Perfect Gift For Lawyers

We understand that being able to take a few weeks off without your firm suffering for it might sound like it’s too good to be true. The concept becomes less realistic the smaller your firm, and might seem downright impossible to a solo attorney. But Answering Legal can make that a reality, no matter the size of your firm.

Our virtual receptionists are a great fit for lawyers because they only answer for lawyers. Other answering services often diversify their customer base to try to get as many customers as possible, but that isn’t true for us.

Because we only answer for lawyers, we can afford to train our receptionists to be specialists. They spend months training before ever picking up the phone. If you want to read more about our training process, click here.

The bulk of that training is in legal intakes. Our receptionists can gather all the information your firm needs and deliver it to you without making your leads feel like they’re filling out a form. This holiday season and beyond, we’ll make sure your leads stick with your firm.

Treat yourself to better lead capturing and some time off. Click here or call 631-686-9700 to sign up for our free trial. For a limited time, we’re offering firms that sign up their first 400 minutes free.