Solo lawyers often find themselves at a disadvantage when competing with larger firms. Big firms have extensive resources, dedicated receptionists, and plenty of administrative staff. The challenge is to manage client communications while focusing on legal work, and if you're trying to do that, it can hinder your ability to grow while still maintaining a professional image. A solo attorney call answering service can help you enhance efficiency, improve client satisfaction, and reduce overhead costs to put you on more even footing with the big boys.
How Can a Solo Attorney Call Answering Service Help You Compete?
By Enhancing Your Professional Reputation
When you have a live, professional receptionist rather than an automated system, you send a much better message to everyone who calls. This polished and reliable image gains the trust of your clients and helps you to look just as good as large firms that have lots of in-house staff.
At Easybee, our receptionists always answer the calls as they come in and greet your clients in a professional manner; but also in a way that's friendly and personalized to you. This helps your caller to feel like they're valued, right from their first touch, and gives you an edge in a competitive market. We can also use custom tailored call scripts that will fit your unique situation and goals.
24/7 Availability
A large law firm will usually have the resources to make themselves available constantly. If you are a solo lawyer, you rarely have the luxury of lots of in-house staff, let alone enough staff to man your phones 24/7. A solo attorney call answering service is the answer to this problem. You can be sure that every hour of the day, every call is getting answered.
Even in the middle of the night or on weekends, if someone needs your help, your phone is getting answered. This can make all the difference between growing your business and remaining stagnant, as someone calling in an emergency after hours is very likely to just move on if they can't reach you.
Cost-Effectiveness
Another issue for the solo lawyer is the cost of having a full-time receptionist. Even a single receptionist can be beyond your reach once you consider the salary, benefits, as well as training and the need to provide cover every time a receptionist is out with illness or for regular vacation time. And that's just for one receptionist, who will typically only work regular 9 to 5, Monday through Friday hours.
Even if you can afford one person, hiring a second to cover more hours is probably more cost than is worth it for the benefit. But when you have an answering service, all that changes. You get a flexible pricing plan that fits your needs and can start as low as nine dollars a month. Pay-as-you-go options allow you to scale up the plans as you need them, so that your costs match your revenue. There's also no long-term commitment, so you can base your cost entirely on call volume and budget. This allows you to really level the financial playing field against those big firms that have huge staffing budgets.
Streamlining Operations with Appointment Scheduling
It's a huge time sink to manage appointments manually. As you know, taking the call, figuring out your schedule and the client's, and then setting up an appointment can detract from the time you need to spend on billable legal work. Our receptionists here at Easybee can solve this problem for you by handling all the appointments scheduling and messaging clients directly.
With access to your calendar, the receptionist can update it immediately so that you stay organized and don't need to worry about your workflow. Our receptionist can then make sure the clients know when their appointments are, and the whole process is streamlined and simple.
Expanding Client Reach
Our service also offers bilingual answering capability in English and Spanish. For the solo lawyer trying to operate in an area where there are many potential Spanish-speaking clients, this can be a game changer. These clients may be feeling underserved by big firms that don't have multilingual staff, and when they can choose to talk with someone in their own language and set up an appointment with someone who fully understands them, that enhances accessibility and demonstrates that you have concern for cultural competence. This can give you a competitive edge and grow your client base across multiple areas of the community.
Reducing Administrative Burden
When you talk to a small law firm or even a single lawyer, one of the biggest pain point complaints you're likely to hear is usually about the administrative load. Big firms can take care of this by hiring dedicated administrative teams. That means their lawyers never have to worry about distractions from the legal work.
But if you're trying to operate on your own, you know the reality of wasted time doing repetitive administrative tasks. A virtual receptionist can take on a lot of these tasks, like call screening, message taking, and forwarding urgent inquiries on so that you can concentrate on your core responsibilities. The receptionist can filter out the non-urgent calls so that everything that's critical gets sent to you immediately, and this lowered burden for administrative work allows you to not only get work done and concentrate on what pays, but also to maintain a higher level of service for your clients.
Improving Client Satisfaction and Retention
Client satisfaction is critical in the legal realm. A satisfied client will be likely to recommend you to others, while a dissatisfied one is going to complain and will probably seek to diminish your reputation online. Much of client satisfaction comes from prompt, professional responses when someone calls.
If you want to be able to compete with a larger firm, a virtual receptionist gives you a way to enhance satisfaction for everyone who calls you. Your virtual receptionist will make sure every call gets answered right away and is handled with specialized and personalized care. You won't have a client turning to competitors because they don't get an answer and, even if they don't end up giving you their business, they'll come away with a good impression of your professionalism.
Technology Without the Complexity
Something that larger firms do to stay ahead is invest in sophisticated, cutting-edge technology. When you can afford the best of everything, with all the newest features, you can streamline your operations and shoot to the top against your competitors. This is particularly where solo lawyers and small law firms struggle because the costs and the expertise barriers are just so high.
When you work with us at Easybee, we bridge this gap for you by integrating the most advanced call handling technology into our service without requiring you to figure it out and manage it on your own. This allows you to compete technologically with larger firms and offer modern convenience to your clients without the difficulty or the expense of having to source, buy, and then master these systems independently.
Get Reliable Spanish Translation Today
Easybee’s bilingual virtual receptionists help businesses communicate effectively with Spanish-speaking clients. Contact us today to improve your customer interactions!
