Once you decide to use a call center for your law firm, you have a choice to make: use a traditional call center or a legal-focused call center. It’s important to have a clear understanding of the differences between these two types of call centers so you can make the best decision for your law firm. In this post we’ve broken down these differentiators in detail.
Legal Call Centers Understand the Legal Industry
A regular call center specialist may not have knowledge of legal processes, industry terminology, or empathy. Meanwhile, an intake specialist at a legal call center receives training on all of these specialized areas. Because of this specialization in the legal industry, callers never realize they are talking to an outsourced call center. They instead have the experience of talking directly with someone at the law firm.
You may be wondering why empathy is a big deal. Most call centers don’t have to worry about the person calling in going through a traumatic experience, whereas most calls coming into a law firm is someone going through a difficult time in their lives. Having empathy shows the caller that the law firm on the other end truly cares about them and their issues.
Callers who feel a competent person is on the other end of the line will be confident that the rest of your firm’s services are exceptional as well. When you establish trust from the start, you’ll close more business and develop relationships that lead to long-term business.
Legal Call Centers Transfer Data to Your CRM/CMS
A legal call center can transfer data into your customer relationship manager (CRM) or case management system (CMS), so information from callers is immediately available. Your attorneys can then access the information, which means the transition from the call center to your office is seamless for the potential client. Skilled legal call center intake specialists can easily use different technology in the legal industry to ensure this is an effective and accurate process.
Traditional call centers don’t always support CRM/CMS. This often results in the caller being put in contact with your office’s lawyers, and they have to explain their entire issue again. Not only does this come off as unprofessional, it will also aggravate the caller. The frustration builds if the issue is complex, as legal problems tend to be. With the use of a legal call center, your potential clients will feel heard the first time, greatly increasing your chances of conversion.
Legal Call Centers Execute Contracts on First Contact
Retainers are fairly standard and sometimes have no need for a preliminary appointment. With a legal call center on your side, it is not always necessary for an attorney to call the potential client back to get a contract signed. With retainer services, a legal call center can turn those leads into clients by executing contracts with them on the spot. This process is easily streamlined using a legal call center with some training and clarifying of documents and processes on behalf of the law firm during an initial setup phase.
Now that you know the differences between traditional and legal only call centers, it’s easy to see the various ways a non-specialized call center could cost your law firm leads and money due to a lack of expertise in your field. A legal call center goes beyond basic message taking and serves as a full extension of your firm, developing trust and establishing relationships from the very first point of contact and with all of your current clients.
