Law firms have unique needs when it comes to call-handling. Unfortunately, most answering services aren’t suited for law firms.
To best grow your practice, you need a service customized and specifically tailored around your needs and, even more importantly, the needs of your legal clients.
A specialized legal answering service can take care of all of those requirements and do much more for your firm than simply take a message.
Is it time to ditch the general answering service and consider letting a specialized service handle your calls? We’ll let you decide.
Understanding Your Legal Audience
A general answering service won’t know how to appropriately communicate with your potential clients and clients.
General services typically answer calls for a variety of businesses, all of which require a vastly different tone than that of answering a call from a person who has been injured or is in a state of emotional turmoil.
Not only should the service provide a different tone of voice and energy, they should also be well-versed in legal terminology as well as have the ability to be empathetic towards the caller.
The agent should provide them with a sense of comfort and support while they take care of the situation.
Continuous training in legal terminology, psychology, and empathy takes place at a specialized legal answering service to make sure your potential clients and clients are properly taken care of. The same cannot always be said about a general service.
Legal Intake Services
A general answering service won’t perform client intake, which is the lifeblood of most law firms.
A specialized legal answering service has highly trained intake specialists who ask the right questions—predetermined by you—and can conclude whether the caller is qualified or should be referred out to another firm.
Once the intake specialist determines that the caller is qualified, they can patch through the call directly to you, schedule an appointment, send e-retainers, and even email or text you the complete intake.
Additionally, a specialized service is completely customizable (or should be) and will follow your law firm’s customized protocol intake process.
Legal Contract Services
Finally, a general answering service cannot qualify your lead and turn them into a client with a signed contract on the very first call.
A specialized legal answering service can take your leads, whether they come in by phone, chat, web form, email or text, from contact to contract instantly.
A specialized service provides smart lead tracking, which automatically recognizes what stage your lead is in and interfaces them with the next available specialist. They should also offer call time and frequency scheduling, meaning the service will call leads back on your behalf. You get to choose how often, which specific times, and the maximum amount of calls that should be made.
Once the new client is signed up with your firm, a specialized legal answering service will automatically send out a welcome email and SMS/text. This gives the client acknowledgment of contract completion and engagement, a preview of your firm’s professionalism, and a note of your appreciation and acknowledgment.
They will no doubt feel like they are in good hands.
Last but not least, a specialized service will supply you with monthly, weekly or daily reporting. And they will customize the data, availability, and access for you.
A generalized service simply cannot provide this caliber of service, specific for law firms. A specialized legal answering service will, without question, help your firm capture more leads and turn them into signed, paying clients.
Alert Is Specialized
Alert Communications is an award-winning, specialized legal answering service specifically tailored for attorneys and law firms. We do much more than take messages—we provide law firms with all the tools they need to grow their client base. Our call, intake and contract services will help you turn your leads from mere contacts into signed contracts, even on the very first call. Don’t miss out on any more leads with a general answering service. For more information, visit https://www.alertcommunications.com or call 844-694-6825.
