A legal answering or virtual receptionist service can help take your firm to the next level. But many attorneys don\u2019t consider it, believing an in-house receptionist\u2014or even answering their own phone\u2014is good enough. Let\u2019s look at five important reasons to partner with a legal answering service now:<\/p>\n
Many law firms forget one of the most important aspects of marketing\u2014lead capture. It\u2019s not enough to generate leads. You need to capture them. In other words, you have to pick up the phone when they call. Our data shows that about 20% of the calls our legal clients receive are at night or on weekends. But 73% of law firms don\u2019t answer their phones outside of business hours, offering voice mail or nothing at all to clients who call when they\u2019re closed. And 50% don\u2019t respond to emails within 24 hours, either*. Why does this matter? If you don\u2019t capture the leads you generate, you\u2019re wasting your marketing budget. Your potential clients are under pressure to resolve a legal issue. They won\u2019t wait. If you don\u2019t respond when they reach out, they\u2019ll move on to the next firm.<\/p>\n
Lack of after-hours lead capture can lead to missed opportunities. But our call data shows that up to 80% of inbound calls to our legal clients do happen during regular business hours. Unfortunately, you can even miss out on those calls. An in-house receptionist, no matter how competent, can still only handle one call at a time. A virtual receptionist is different. A service like this gives you a pool of minutes to use when you need them. That means if you get no calls all day, you didn\u2019t use any minutes. But if you get five calls at the same time\u2014maybe when your ad airs on TV, or the Monday after you attend a big conference\u2014the service can answer them all simultaneously.<\/p>\n
Savvy attorneys know that good intake is critical. But some answering services miss the mark here. They can take messages for you, but that\u2019s not real intake. If your attorneys are spending their time sorting through messages, you\u2019re wasting their valuable time. A great intake process is more than just messages. You need a virtual receptionist with the flexibility to do some lead qualification. How does that work? Your virtual receptionist answers your calls. Instead of just taking a message every time, they ask questions that are important to you. For example, they can ask if the caller is a new or returning client. If the caller is new, the receptionist asks a few more questions to determine whether they\u2019re a good fit for your firm. A solid intake process boosts your efficiency by making it easy for you to prioritize who to call back first.<\/p>\n