Focus on the positive even when you don’t know the answer.
Realistically, you will not know the answer to every question a caller asks. Rather than appearing uneducated about the client you represent, focus on finding an answer for the caller. For example,

Caller:  “Is Mrs. Jones available?”

Refrain from this answer:  “I don’t know. Let me try her line for you.”
Use one of these answers:
“If you can please hold for one moment, I’d be happy to check for you.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Jones is unavailable at the moment but I’d me happy to take a message and let her know that you called.”

Skipping the statement “I don’t know” jumps right to offering help to the caller (the action part of the statement).

Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
Time-sensitive questions are sometimes difficult to address when you aren’t certain of the time frame.

Common time-related questions:
“When will Mrs. Jones be in?”
“When will Mrs. Jones return my call?”

Instead of stating a time without Mrs. Jones’ consent, deflect the question and offer assistance in your control. This removes the “I don’t know” and replaces it with positive statements. For example:

“Unfortunately, Mrs. Jones didn’t check out with me but I’d be happy to take a message and let her know that you called.”
“Mrs. Jones generally returns her calls in the order that they are received, therefore, it is difficult to say exactly when that would be. However, I will make sure she receives the message immediately.”

Choose the method of communication preferred by your client.
Every person is different when it comes to communicating throughout the day. Some people prefer responding to emails, others like to talk it out on the phone. Know what your client prefers and point callers in that direction.

“Mrs. Smith is currently out of the office, but has Internet access and will happily reply if you’d like to email her directly.”
“I’d be happy to forward you to Mrs. Smith’s voicemail and she will return your call as soon as she can.”

Simultaneously satisfy your client and your client’s callers by being aware of communication preferences.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications. Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support.

Mr. Thompson is a testament to the fact that the life of an attorney can become overwhelmingly busy. Let alone not physically being available to answer every incoming call, sometimes it’s unnerving to switch gears quickly between a family member and a potential client. However, Mr. Thompson advises that attorneys steer clear of hiring an in-house receptionist and instead implement a virtual receptionist.

In his post, Mr. Thompson highlights the benefits of a virtual receptionist, including no overhead costs, 24/7 client communication, and effective task management (appointment setting, answering routine questions, etc.).

Read the full post to see how a virtual receptionist has improved Mr. Thomson’s office organization:  Virtual Receptionist Service: Who’s picking up your phone?

Business Identity and Caller Empathy

When handling incoming calls, agents should always identify themselves right away with his or her name and the company they are representing. After politely inquiring about the reason for the call, agents should be patient while letting the caller fully explain their questions or concerns. Allowing the caller to speak without interruption helps develop a trust factor. When the customer is finished speaking, agents should display a level of concern for their needs and follow up with probing, relevant questions to help resolve the issue at hand. As a call center, one of your main goals is to ease any uncertainty the caller may have about making a commitment later in the conversation.

Establishing Desires of Clients

When prospective clients make the very first call to a business, they may not know exactly what they need or even what to look for. This is where call center agents use custom scripting and industry training. Call center agents must ask probing questions to discover the caller’s needs, collect useful information, and develop a rapport.

Eliminating Cancellations

Post-call remorse may occur after getting off the line with a caller who has agreed to set an appointment, purchase a product, upgrade a service, etc. Many agents will rush to get off the phone after upselling, cross-selling, or appointment setting in order to avoid sudden changes of heart from the caller. While this may seem effective, it can actually leave the new customer feeling regretful and panicked. To significantly reduce cancellations, call agents should follow a post-close script that will leave the caller confident in their decision to utilize the business’s services.

Call center agents who develop a healthy rapport with callers are proven to capture more leads and make more conversions than those who do not establish an agent-caller relationship.

Service providers that offer 24/7 emergency assistance receive calls around the clock. Naturally, not all of these calls can be taken and voice mailboxes fill up quickly. Some businesses don’t even have the time to go through all of their messages, let alone return calls. Allow a 24-hour virtual receptionist to handle this for you. Especially in emergency situations, callers are more likely to keep dialing until they reach immediate assistance. When a caller reaches a live person, they are much less likely to drop the call.

Whether you are fixing a broken air conditioner or sending out roadside assistance for an overheated car, virtual receptionists for service providers ensure that your business is reachable 24 hours a day for the ultimate in customer care. Virtual receptionist services allow you to customize scripts in line with your business objectives so no information slips through the cracks. Answering services can take incoming calls 24 hours, after business hours, or simply just for overflow. Automated services can also be used solely or in combination with a live receptionist to screen calls before answering. Several options are available depending on the size of your business and its needs. Choose to receive messages via email or text, or even implement bilingual call center agents for Spanish-speaking callers.

Virtual receptionists take over the administrative duties so that you have time to run your business. Virtual receptionists will manage scheduling tasks, collect accurate client information, dispatch calls to technicians, put through emergency service callers, record messages, and provide post service customer satisfaction calls. Service packages can be purchased with no contract according to your call volume. As a service provider, your leads can now become clients with the help of a virtual receptionist.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support.

White Paper #1 – Turning Leads Into Clients: Professional Call Center Etiquette for Personal Injury Lawyers

Capturing leads can be daunting, especially without a strategy in place. Utilizing an attorney answering service is an affordable, repeatable avenue for more lead captures. Attorneys spend a considerable amount of money on marketing, so once a potential client picks up the phone you want to ensure that all pertinent lead data is collected. With customizable scripting, legal receptionists can obtain the information needed to answer all of the caller’s questions and point them in the correct direction. Don’t allow a missed call to become a missed opportunity; consider a professional call center for efficient data intake and call management strategies.

White Paper #2 – Turning Bankruptcy Inquiries into Attorney Appointments: Professional Call Center Etiquette for Bankruptcy Attorneys

Bankruptcy attorneys will benefit from the use of a call management system to organize caller information and scheduling. An attorney answering service simplifies these jobs by implementing specific strategies for data intake, appointment setting, and general messages. With a virtual receptionist every call is an opportunity for new business. By implementing strategies that work for your goals, simple inquiries can efficiently become appointments.

Legal receptionists act as the face of your law firm, so make sure the correct steps are taken to acquire and retain more leads once they reach you. Alert Communications will deliver an effective call management solution to save you money and exceed your business objectives.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support.

“The practice of law has always been a relationship business and remains a relationship business despite the growing importance of the Internet,” Weiss says.

People like to be informed, especially when dealing with a lawyer. Keeping clients in the know can include receiving new awards, joining new associations, adding new staff, making changes to procedures, and much more. It also means being available when the client is trying to get in contact. Law firms that are proactive and maintain open communication with clients and colleagues gain trust and are more likely to get a large share of the client’s legal work and referrals. Lawyers can also ultimately charge higher rates for higher quality services.

One way to keep an open line of communication in a law firm is by implementing an attorney answering service. Customer service plays a huge role in a lawyer or law firm’s success. A legal receptionist guarantees that callers will reach a live agent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Attorney answering services offer the flexibility of creating a custom script to obtain all pertinent caller information and leave little room for miscommunication. By reaching a live person rather than voice mail or an automated service, callers are less likely to hang up and give business to competitors. Consider an attorney answering service to get leads and increase revenue – don’t let a missed call become a missed opportunity.

To read more about the surveys and results reviewed by Bob Weiss, click here.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support.

I could give you a long list of things to try on your web site to increase customer loyalty, but I’d rather give you some tips to make sure you don’t lose it.

• Keep it simple – If your web site is too difficult for people to navigate, they will look elsewhere. Use easy-to-read signs to guide them, and make sure your navigation bar is simple and in the same spot on every page.
• Deliver on promises – Nothing is more aggravating than finding out “guarantees” are only lip service. If you’re not going to do it, don’t put it on your site.
• Limit bells and whistles – You want people to immediately know what you do. Don’t distract them with flashing icons, pop-up windows and rotating banner ads.
• Be current – Promote new products, services, discounts and special offers. Tell people when an out-of-stock will return. Don’t frustrate them by waiting until check out to tell them.  
• Don’t hide your contact info – If it’s too difficult to reach you, visitors may go elsewhere. Offer a variety of ways to reach you – toll-free phone number, e-mail address or a live, online chat.

While you work to discover new ways to build customer loyalty with your online presence, be sure your site isn’t working against you.

Is there something else you’ve done to make sure you’re not damaging customer loyalty? Please share your comments.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support including: Call Center Service, Live Answering Service, Spanish Answering Service, Attorney Answering Service, Virtual Receptionist Service.

You can’t afford a full-time receptionist in your small business, but you also can’t risk missing a call. Is there a fix? Yes. Alert Communications’

We use advanced technology and trained agents to mirror the job of your on-staff receptionist, intake specialist, appointment scheduler or emergency dispatcher at a fraction of the cost. No matter what industry you’re in, we can tailor our services to meet your financial and business needs — without signing a contract.
—Emergency calls – Our agents follow your customized escalation protocols so each call/message gets to the right person, right away. We also provide reports so you can track your calls.
—Work-hours calls – Alert agents can handle calls during lunch times or whenever you don’t have coverage in your office.
—After-hours calls – We provide 24/7 phone answering service 365 days of the year, so your calls are answered on sick days or during vacations.
—Bilingual calls – Alert offers 24/7 bilingual answering services at no extra charge.

With our options, you have the flexibility to choose when to forward your calls to Alert. We also can work with you to combine your existing automated system with our live services for customized answering. Take advantage of the small business answering service options Alert Communications offers, and never miss a call again.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications is a 24/7bilingual inbound call center, specializing in professional attorney answering, virtual receptionist, Spanish answering and business answering solutions.

This past weekend I attended a tradeshow promoting Alert Communications’ attorney answering services. Based on the traffic at our booth, I’d say it was very successful. Many well-qualified candidates interested in using our services stopped by to ask questions and learn more. But since I would like some sales figures to confirm our success, I won’t make a final decision until we’ve done some follow up, and I see those final numbers in a few weeks or a month.

As I said, we had a lot of traffic. The people were very nice and had a lot of great questions to ask us. Are you available 24/7? Do your agents speak Spanish?  Can you schedule appointments for me, and how do you do it? What makes your service different from other call centers/answering services?

All the visitors spent a lot of time explaining their situation and gave us a chance to tell them how our lawyer answering services could truly help them. But guess what the most popular question was — How much is it?

That same question was asked in a variety of ways. I quoted rates, explained our services are month to month and did my best to help them see our value. I made a point of explaining that our attorney answering services are designed to help them capture new clients they might otherwise lose. And I pointed out that  additional business would pay for the cost of our services. I was doing a good job, but not nearly as good a job as my existing clients did for me.

It was great! THEY were great! Many of our clients stopped by our booth to say hello and tell us what a great job we do. On several occasions, I had 5-10 people at my booth when an Alert client stopped by to sing our praises. This was live, word-of-mouth advertising that was better than anything I could possibly say to prospective clients.

Our current clients explained how great our staff is, how friendly they are, how our account managers help them and — best of all — how they had no idea how many calls they were missing until they started using our services. They went on to say their practices were growing because they were no longer missing those calls. If only my cell phone shot video, I would have some great video testimonials for our Web site!

While there are any number of effective online, electronic and printed ways to advertise in today’s business world, I have to admit there’s still nothing that beats the impact of word-of-mouth advertising.

If you don’t know what your clients are saying about you, it’s time to go find out.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications is a 24/7bilingual inbound call center, specializing in professional attorney answering, virtual receptionist, Spanish answering and business answering solutions.

Sometimes it’s difficult to make the decision to choose a specialized service over a general service, especially when your first thought is whether or not it’s cost effective. If you’re an attorney, you may wonder about the differences between a general answering service and one that specializes in offering lawyer answering services. Consider this.

If you’re a bankruptcy attorney, hiring a company that specializes in lawyer answering services can eliminate you handling client creditor calls. By providing a client list to the company, a receptionist can verify representation and notify you of the call details via e-mail. With a general answering service you might just get a message with a call-back number.

A personal injury practice also can benefit in both time and money with specialized lawyer answering services. The receptionist can take potential-client calls, complete an intake form and deliver it to you in csv format to import to your case management software. Some lawyer answering services can immediately connect the caller to you as well. This can reduce the time your practice spends on the phone with an unqualified caller.

If you choose the right lawyer answering service as a criminal defense attorney, you could retain a client on the first call. For instance, a receptionist can immediately connect potential traffic-violation clients to you and remain on the line to transcribe the conversation. You receive an e-mail from the receptionist that documents fees, credit card information and pertinent case facts. You’ve retained the client on the first call and have a detailed transcript of your conversation.

Immigration attorneys can benefit from a specialized lawyer answering service where potential clients are taken care of on the first call, giving them no reason to continue to shop for legal services. In this type of practice you want to be sure the lawyer answering service offers multi-lingual support as well as intake processing and appointment scheduling. 

When you shop around for lawyer answering services here are a few questions you should ask:

• Do they provide 24/7 service?
• Do they offer bilingual or multilingual services?
• Can they provide customer referrals?
• Do they have specialized training?

A specialized lawyer answering service will cost a bit more, but it’s a smart investment in your practice. The applications mentioned above are designed to either reduce your work load or help you capture potential new clients. Paying a bit more so your client calls are handled professionally and successfully the first time the phone rings is definitely worth a lot more.