Three Reasons Your Firm Needs An After Hours Call Center

Let’s be real: voicemail doesn’t cut it anymore. You know as well as we do that if you don’t answer the phone, those leads are likely to call another firm before you can get back to them, even if they leave a voicemail. That’s advertising budget wasted on generating a lead you weren’t able to secure.

That’s what receptionists are for, right? If you’ve got good reception staff, they know they have to capture leads and make sure callers become clients. But what happens when that receptionist goes home? That’s right, you’re back to relying on voicemail.

With an after hours call center, you’ll be able to get rid of your voicemail entirely. You’ll be able to expand your client base, earn more 5-star reviews, and beat your competition to all those leads you’re fighting over. Here are three reasons your firm needs an after hours call center.

Legal Trouble Doesn’t Wait Until Sunrise

It’s rare that a client is prepared for the legal issue they’re calling you about. After all, if they were prepared, they’d already have a lawyer. Because legal troubles can come out of nowhere, at any time, you need to be ready to handle those troubles at any time.

You might think, “I agree, if you specialize in a legal discipline that obviously needs to be available 24/7.” Criminal defense attorneys, for example, need to be ready to handle calls from clients at all hours, since things like DUIs and robberies often happen late at night.

Although you may think your legal discipline is safe from late-night calls, you really can’t ever know what life will throw at your would-be clients. If you’re in family law, for example, you know that sometimes there are late night fights with a spouse that simply can’t wait till morning to be resolved. And even tax attorneys have to deal with someone going over their business’s revenue late into the evening before realizing they might need some legal help.

At the end of the day (no pun intended), an after hours answering service will grow your client base no matter what legal discipline you specialize in, because legal issues happen to people everywhere all the time. If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be nearly as many lawyers!

Our Team Can Help Secure New Clients Overnight

You might be wondering: “Okay, you’ve convinced me people may call my firm at all hours. But how is an after hours answering service going to help me secure clients calling at 2 AM? And what if I still want to be able to speak to valuable prospects regardless of when they call in?”

If that’s what you want, an after hours answering service can do that. We recommend attorneys speak to new client callers as soon as possible in order to secure as many leads as they can. If you want to speak to new clients, no matter the time of day, you can have the virtual receptionists reach out to you and see if they can transfer the call over so you can secure new business. If you’re not available or you’d rather not be interrupted at night, you can get the next best thing: a legal intake.

If the call won’t be transferred, the virtual receptionist will ask the caller for vital case information, collecting the information into a message you’ll have waiting for you in your text or email when you get back into the office. With a legal intake, your clients will both avoid the uncomfortable process of leaving a detailed voicemail and feel they’ve already begun the process of hiring your firm.

Prospective clients are often anxiously seeking legal help, and what they want most is to feel like they’re being heard. Imagine how grateful a nervous caller will be that they got to speak to a human being and take the first step toward solving their legal issues. They’re not just less likely to move on to another firm; they might even go online and show their gratitude with a 5-star review.

You Can’t Let Your Competition Get Ahead

We hope you can see the benefits of an after hours call center for your firm. You’ll secure more leads, grow your client base, and make callers feel secure and comfortable, maybe even secure and comfortable enough to leave you a glowing review. But there’s something you should know: your competition can see those same benefits too.

If you’re doing research and considering an after hours call center, you can be sure your competition will do the same. If you don’t reap the benefits an after hours call center can give your firm, you’ll be exactly where you are now: following up the next morning on voicemails and finding out the caller has already found other legal counsel.

Those callers are worried, and they’re often going to keep dialing until they get a live voice on the other end. If they get your voicemail, they’ll call the next firm on their list, and there’s a good chance they have 24/7 answering. If they do, that lead has slipped through your fingers. The only way to make sure you capture that lead is with an after hours call center.

Answering Legal Is The Way To Go

We hope we’ve convinced you that an after hours call center can benefit your firm. Now let us convince you that Answering Legal is the best one you’ll find. Our virtual receptionists specialize in answering for lawyers, so you’ll know you’re always getting the highest quality legal intake and lead capturing available.

Our service is available 24/7, of course, but there’s much more to Answering Legal than that. Our virtual receptionists are bilingual, meaning you’ll be able to expand your client base to Spanish-speakers in your community in need of legal assistance. If you already have a reception staff, our overflow call handling will let our virtual receptionists support your office by answering any calls they miss, and our live call transferring will let you handle those calls exactly as you would if it were being patched through by a receptionist in your office.

Ready to beat your competition to the punch and start helping anxious late-night callers get the legal help they need? 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 with our service their first 400 minutes free.