Is your legal answering service meeting your business needs? Are they pushing you closer toward your goals, or delivering poor results? The answers to these questions are critical to the success of your firm.

If you are working with an ineffective legal answering service, you may be experiencing low revenue and a low marketing return on investment (ROI), while also wasting valuable money on the service.

So how can you evaluate your legal answering service? Here are three ways to determine whether or not they’re doing the job well.

1. Low Lead Loss Rate

Lead loss represents leads that come to your business but are not captured by your answering service, only to sign with your competition. A quality legal answering service will have a low lead loss rate. In other words, the answering service will aim to capture every lead and funnel them into your CRM/CMS system.

There are several ways an answering service can accomplish this. First, responsiveness is important. An answering service that can answer the phone or reply to emails at any time of the day, no matter the day, will capture more leads. Bilingual, highly trained intake specialists who are skilled at guiding leads to the purchase decision are also vital. A company that has these factors in place will have a lower lead loss rate.

Across the industry, the average lead loss rate is greater than 8 percent. At Alert Communications, we boast a rate of less than 3 percent. This is a big difference, one that will bring greater success to your business. Evaluate your answering service to ensure you have a low lead loss rate.

2. High Client Conversion Rate

Client conversion rate is different than lead loss rate, but closely connected. Your client conversion rate is the actual conversion of leads into clients. In order to accomplish a high rate, legal answering services must have advanced lead tracking systems to properly manage and track their incoming leads. Using a CRM/CMS system and convenient contract delivery methods, like e-sign, can all help convert leads into clients. When more leads turn into paying clients and your client conversion rate grows, your firm will also grow. Also, here are The 5 most important things to keep in mind to grow your business, which you can skim through and apply it in real life, to expand your business.

3. Increased Revenue and Return on Investment

Finally, the ultimate measure of whether or not your legal answering service is succeeding is your ROI. Are you seeing an increase in revenue because of the help of your answering service? Superior intake practices handled by trained specialists are the key to ensuring a high ROI for your firm.

Lost leads and poor conversions cost you money. A high-quality legal answering service should have a positive impact on your business by bringing in more leads, converting them into clients and increasing your revenue. Alert Communications has helped many law firms find excellent results, offering transparency reporting that helps firms track performance effectively. With this level of reporting, combined with our industry-leading services, we can guarantee clear results, thus helping you grow your business.