How A Legal Virtual Receptionist Can Grow Your Firm’s Reputation

Everything hinges on an attorney’s reputation. Unfortunately, this is an uphill battle for many attorneys. Those decades of untrustworthy lawyer jokes have their root in a reality: attorneys have one of the lowest ratings of customer satisfaction among American service providers. On a recent episode of Everything Except the Law, attorney Paul T. Llewellyn discussed just why that may be the case.

Not long ago, a law firm’s reputation relied on referrals from former clients, who could attest personally to an attorney’s character. Those referrals weren’t listed on an attorney’s entry in the phone book; you just had to know somebody who knew what that attorney was like.

Nowadays, that reputation lives online. Online reviews, available in the same place many clients will find you, play a huge role in determining an attorney’s reputation. Luckily, modern technology has made it so that small firms, previously disadvantaged in reputation-growth, have a fighting chance to stand out. A legal virtual receptionist is one of those tools that will help you grow your firm’s reputation.

You’ll Stay On Good Terms With Non-Clients

A good portion of the phone calls attorneys receive can be called non-client calls. These can either be tire-kickers, price-checkers, or people who think they have a case but don’t.

Though they may not be trying to, these callers are often wasting their time and that of the firm they’re calling. They may believe they have a case, but in fact there isn’t anything an attorney can do to help them. Or they may have a case in a practice area your firm doesn’t handle. But they have an outsized power over your firm’s reputation.

Research has shown that it takes 40 positive customer experiences to outweigh a single bad one.

That means these non-client callers can still mess with your reputation. A single bad review in your online business profile takes a long time to go away. And all it takes to get a negative review is for a stressed, hurried attorney to quickly usher one of these callers off the phone, or to ignore them altogether.

A legal virtual receptionist has many jobs. But their primary role is to make sure every caller has a superb experience. Yes, that includes these callers. By ensuring every call gets answered immediately, a legal virtual receptionist will make sure nobody is complaining about being ignored online. And, by politely handling these calls when they come in, a legal virtual receptionist will save you time and help your firm’s reputation grow.

You’ll Easily Manage The Needs Of Existing Clients

Of course, the other biggest determiner of your firm’s reputation is the clients you’ve helped already. They can still recommend you to the people they know, of course—the personal referral is still a very helpful tool for growing a law firm—but they’ll also be your best source of impactful and positive reviews.

The problem is that existing clients tend not to be satisfied with results. Promising and delivering great results is only one part of handling a legal matter; as you well know, clients want and need much more of your time than simply handling their case would take. And it’s understandable—after all, if you were undergoing a process you understood little about, wouldn’t you call for updates and ask a lot of questions in order to understand what was going on?

Existing client issues need attention, but tend to fall behind in priority for attorneys.

According to the ABA, neglect and lack of communication are the top reasons for official complaints leveled against attorneys.

And if these are the top reasons for official complaints, you can imagine what their unofficial complaints look like online!

With a legal virtual receptionist, you’ll be able to manage existing client needs easily. Every caller will get a personal assurance from a representative of your firm that you will get back to them as soon as possible. They’ll be much more patient once they’ve spoken to a receptionist and gotten their message across.

And those messages will make it easy to keep track of who is calling and why. You’ll be able to, at a glance, tell which calls are more urgent and which can be answered by a simple email. Just with this one simple role, a legal virtual receptionist will help make sure your existing clients leave your firm happy with your service. If you’d like to learn more about how we handle our message-taking, click here.

You’ll Satisfy New Clients And Secure Their Business

This is where it all comes together. Your effort to grow your firm’s reputation pays off when it helps you get new clients. When your marketing reaches new clients, they will need some way to know that you’re able to help them.

Your reputation will be that indicator. In today’s online world, that means they’ll be taking a look at your online reviews.

According to Clio’s Legal Trends Report in 2022, online reviews are the most important criteria clients consider when selecting a lawyer.

Thanks to your legal virtual receptionist, nonclient and client reviews will be stellar, so they’ll be able to tell that you’re trustworthy instantly.

But that’s not all! A legal virtual receptionist will make sure your clients know they’ve reached someone who can help when they call your firm. By taking the client through a legal intake, they’ll be satisfying that little voice in a new client’s head that tells them that they should be answering questions only a lawyer can ask.

A major part of running a client-centered law firm is making sure that your client experience is top-notch. And that experience starts with onboarding. A kind, patient virtual receptionist handling their call at the outset of their experience will go a long way toward making sure that your clients’ doubts are assuaged and their questions answered. And that, in turn, will help grow your reputation, so that the next new client is even more likely to stick with your firm.

Your Reputation Is Safe In Answering Legal’s Hands

If you’re reading this, your reputation is probably—hopefully!—good. Attorneys as interested in the ins and outs of their firm as the readers of this blog are unlikely to have, for example, the reputation Saul Goodman had in Albuquerque.

Jokes aside, we believe there’s still value in our advice. One’s reputation is something that can always be improved, and something that requires constant care. One moment of neglect can injure a reputation for months, which is why it’s important to have a legal virtual receptionist safeguarding that reputation 24/7.

And if you’re entrusting your reputation to anyone, it should be Answering Legal. We help the firms we answer for grow their reputation by making sure every call gets answered by a highly-trained receptionist, no matter when it comes in.

Our virtual receptionists are the best in the business. They train for months to answer for lawyers, and only answer for lawyers. That makes them experts, and the perfect candidates to perform legal intakes or let nonclient callers know they won’t be needing your help. Click here if you’d like to learn more about our virtual receptionists!

Get on the fast track to a stellar reputation in your market. 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 for our service their first 400 minutes free.