Three Life Hacks For Attorneys Using A Law Firm Receptionist Service

Often the simplest tasks will end up causing the biggest headaches for attorneys at growing firms. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is the task of answering phone calls. In theory, it should be a pretty simple process. Clients call your firm looking for help, you pick up and collect their information, then quickly return to resuming your work day.

In reality, answering phone calls can end up feeling like another full-time gig for lawyers. There’s always a ton of pressure on attorneys to pick up the phone, because consumers will quickly move on to calling your competition if you don’t answer live. With this being the case, lawyers are put in a position where they must answer the phone 24/7 or risk missing new clients.

And of course once attorneys actually get on a call, they’ll often have to listen to people tell extended stories and ask a series of unending questions. They’ll also have to take potential new clients through the legal intake process and schedule future meetings with them. As a result of all this, two-minute phone calls quickly turn into half-hour calls, and work time quickly ends up getting pushed into after hours and weekends.

It’s Time To Start Working Smarter

Fortunately for attorneys there’s an easy way to navigate the many problems created by legal phone answering. By signing up with a 24/7 law firm receptionist service like Answering Legal, lawyers will be given much more flexibility in the way they run their business and communicate with callers.

Now, let’s go over three simple solutions (or life hacks if you prefer) for the everyday phone answering headaches attorneys face, all of which can be accomplished with the help of our virtual receptionist team.

1- Let Our Receptionist Team Handle Your Client Intake Work

Taking a prospective client through the legal intake process isn’t exactly fun. In fact, it can often be dull and tedious, and take up a significant amount of your time. But just because it’s boring, doesn’t mean it’s not important. In fact, the way you handle legal intakes can often determine whether or not a prospect wants to move forward with using your services.

The good news for attorneys is that there’s a way to guarantee their new client intakes are always done right, without them having to do it themselves. The Answering Legal receptionist team is highly trained at executing legal intakes, and is available to take callers to your firm through that process at any time.

Our receptionists will make your first-time callers feel welcome and collect their information using specific intake questions provided by your firm. All of the info we collect will be sent to you via text and email message as soon as the call concludes. With this system in place, you’ll always be able to monitor incoming client opportunities, while significantly cutting down on the amount of time you need to be on the phone yourself.

2- Allow Our Receptionist To Schedule New Appointments On Your Behalf

Another helpful Answering Legal feature that a large number of our attorney customers enjoy taking advantage of is appointment scheduling. Our law firm receptionist service is able to integrate with just about any calendar software a lawyer might be using. This gives our virtual receptionists the ability to schedule future follow-up meetings directly into an attorney’s calendar.

What this could mean for lawyers who decide to take advantage is one less reason to have to hop on a phone call. No longer will you have to patiently wait for a caller to go check their calendar, or try to remember if they have something going on that day, or ask to change to another time when they do remember they have something going on that day. Our receptionists can handle that work for you, and will only book new appointments in time slots you deem to be available.

Not only will you avoid having to get on the phone, but your new leads will love the ability to immediately book their next meeting with your firm. Having that next meeting on their calendar will make them much less likely to shop around with other firms.

3- Set Aside Small Windows Of Time For Making Client Calls Each Day

Answering Legal won’t entirely eliminate an attorney’s phone time. But using a quality law firm receptionist service like ours does give you the ability to choose exactly when you want to be on the phone and when you don’t.

For example, you could have our virtual receptionist team to handle your incoming calls from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., then spend 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. calling back the people who called throughout the day. Figuring out who you need to call will be as simple as going through the text and email messages our service has sent you.

Because of the work done by our virtual receptionist team, you’ll enter your follow-up calls already knowing whoa the person is and their exact reason for reaching out to you. This will allow you to get to the heart of a caller’s issue much faster, and limit the amount of time your follow-up calls take. You’ll also have a lot more free time during your 9 to 4 stretch of the day, which can allow you to get more billable work done. You know, the stuff that actually gets you paid.

A similar system can be put in place for after hours calls. Let our receptionist team handle your office’s calls from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m., then spend 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. returning calls. Imagine being able to sleep through an entire night!

Ready to try out some of these life hacks for yourself. Get started with a 7-day free trial of Answering Legal now by filling out this form or calling us at 631-686-9700.

Check out this post to learn more about the law firm receptionist experience.