More and more law firms are discovering the benefits of partnering with a legal call center. Instead of wasting billable hours qualifying leads or performing intake, lawyers can outsource these tasks to trained experts from a law firm answering service.
Unlike most in-house receptionists, legal intake specialists at call centers are available 24/7/365. Best-in-class legal call centers can perform all the duties of a receptionist: client intake, appointment scheduling, follow-up calls, tracking leads and getting contracts signed.
Over the past 54 years, Alert Communications has perfected the art of legal intake, and therefore we’ve come across many questions that law firms ask when considering their options. In this article, we’ve compiled the answers to the most frequently asked questions.
Why should I trust Alert Communications?
- Alert Communications has provided quality legal intake services for thousands of attorneys since 1965. Through millions of intakes, Alert’s experts have developed specific and effective tools to identify the cases that best match a given law firm.
What makes Alert’s intake services superior?
- 24/7/365 client intake – Many potential leads don’t have the time or ability to call your firm during traditional business hours. They might try to make contact when they need help or are searching for legal guidance, often in the off-hours. A 24/7/365 response captures this opportunity when it’s receptive.
- Specialized education – Our legal intake specialists receive extensive training before they work with your law firm. Beyond learning legal terminology, our intake specialists learn how to combine empathy and call control to ensure they collect the necessary information.
- Ongoing training – Our intake specialists continue to hone their skills with robust training no matter how long they have been on the job.
What call services do you offer?
- Overflow and after-hours coverage – When your phone won’t stop ringing, Alert’s team is there to answer instead of leaving you with a series of long voicemails.
- Live transfer and call routing – When a prospective lead has been converted or needs extra support, our intake specialists can instantly transfer the call to anyone in your office.
- Appointment setting – Beyond answering the phone and performing client intake, Alert’s team can set up appointments on your behalf to save you time and energy.
- Bilingual language support – 45% of our staff is bilingual in English and Spanish, so you never have to worry about whether the person answering the phone can communicate in the same language as your leads.
Does Alert Communications require a long-term contract?
- No, our services are a month-to-month commitment. We know law firms need flexibility, so we don’t require long-term contractual agreements or other major commitments. We are confident enough in the quality of our services to have no need to sign extensive contracts that lock our clients in.
What if we already have an in-house intake team?
- Even if your firm already has an intake resource, Alert Communications can easily help with overflow and surge capacity during key response times or major regional events when legal help is at premium demand.
What do current Alert Communications partners think?
- Alert has over 60 Google reviews with an average rating of 5 Stars. Get a feel for what our clients have to say with this example:
- Walter Clark of Walter Clark Legal Group said: “We switched to Alert Communications in April 2014 and since then we have seen an increase in ‘cases opened’ in the amount of 47%. The biggest help has been in getting competent and quick help with Spanish-speaking callers…We are simply grateful for what Alert Communications does for us.”
What kind of technology do you use and/or integrate with?
- All the major elements are covered including: VOIP networks, ADC routing, hot/warm/cold phone response transferring, response tree designs and more.
- Web form response – How often are leads lost because law firm staff forget to check the inbox for generic website forms? Alert Communications can stop this leakage of opportunity by proactively following up with leads on your firm’s behalf.
- Powerful metric reports – Information is power. Do you know who is calling, what time of day, the demographics they represent, and which marketing efforts are paying off versus not? Alert Communications can provide your firm with various types of call and marketing reports that can help you expand your reach in the future and attract more potential clients.
- CRM/CMS – Much of the manual labor involved in lead tracking comes from importing and integrating new leads and your company’s Case Management System or Customer Relationship Management Software.
What does your onboarding process look like? How soon can we get up and running?
- On day one, you’ll be introduced to your Account Manager and Programmer. We will schedule your Onboarding Kickoff Call at this point.
- After the kickoff call, our programming team will hand-code everything you need for your account. Because each business is different, we either start from scratch or customize a template depending on your needs.
- Depending on the complexity of your account you can be ready to go live within 10 business days and then a “ready to go live” email is sent to you, and your account is launched.
These are some of the most commonly asked questions we hear at Alert. However, we are available to answer any and all questions you may have. Feel free to contact us here.
