When hiring for legal services, clients will always look for reputable ones in terms of services offered. To build a reputation, you must offer excellent and professional services for years for the clients to talk positively about your law firm and your experience. For family issues, sensitivity and urgency are critical issues required from you. Family issues are usually long before they are settled; hence they need to be started as soon as possible. There are times when you find people want to contact you and are busily engaged with other clients. Will you leave them and attend to those making calls? No. giving 100% attention to your clients is very important because they want to feel the value for the time and money they will spend to get help from you.
One thing that will help you achieve an excellent reputation is using an answering service in your family law firm. Answering services has many benefits and can lead to the growth of your business in the future. It ensures that they are attended to at all times, and no one leaves a voicemail or hangs up because there was no response. You must be a reliable lawyer to have your business expand.
There are services that an answering service can offer to benefit your business. They are:
24-Hours Answering Service
Domestic violence or family disputes can happen anytime, and a partner may think of filing a lawsuit against the other. The partner will look for a family attorney to help out even in odd hours. With the presence of an answering service, your clients will have an easy time contacting you at all times. The answering service will ensure your clients do not look for help in other family law firms and that you can attend to their issues timely. Customers in need of your service can contact you anytime with a legal answering service. Therefore, there will be no missed opportunity because all the clients will have their issues attended to; may it be during the weekend or the holiday.
Your Clients Can Easily Schedule Appointments
There are so many cases that you get where families need family attorney representation. Therefore, you do not want to spend the whole day booking appointments with your clients. With an answering service, you do not have to waste a lot of time in the office because the answering service is enabled. Your clients can book appointments without visiting the office, and your day will be well utilized.
Family cases take time to be concluded because the parties involved need to have the initial meeting where the issues will be discussed and another where the decision is made on the way forward. To book these appointments can be useful with an answering service. The appointments are booked in a way that you are only booked at the time that you are not engaged in other activities. Your days will well be planned and have all your clients attended, depending on urgency.
Bilingual Service is Enabled
It is essential to ensure that your clients get the responses they need in a professional and personal way. The clients who contact your office are of different diversity, and all need your attention. Suppose you have employed a live receptionist, and he or she cannot speak other languages. Your family law firm is likely to lose a lot due to the communication barrier. An answering service offers bilingual services where clients who use different languages can still get the help they need from your law firm and get the best consultation. Therefore, clients are likely to be comfortable choosing your family law firm to seek help at all times.
An Answering Service Gives a Good Impression for Your Family Law firm and Your Services
When a new client is referred to your office, they expect to be served exceptionally with their legal issues. You can win many clients with your good services. When your business is also new to the market, you need to ensure that you attract as many clients as possible to create your business's right image. An answering service can be of much help because it will always keep your client updated with the type of service you offer and how soon they expect to have their issues attended. For clients who are far away from your law firm, they can comfortably contact your office in different ways, through calls, emails, or messages, and will have an assurance that you will contact them sooner.
You Will Not Miss Calls from Your Clients
Clients expect to have their calls answered when they call your law firm. Receiving a voicemail message is something that you should ensure your clients do not receive because they are often frustrated. Since many family matters are urgent, they need an immediate response from you. With an Answering service, your clients will be able to contact your law firm and get the help they need from you. Whether you are engaged in other activities or with other clients, the clients contacting your firm will still get the service they need without fail. In case of an urgent family issue, you will be notified, and you will use your skills and decide what to do.
There is Reduced Cost for You and Your Clients
An answering service requires a little cost to maintain it compared to having a live receptionist. A live receptionist has to be paid, retire after working hours, and sometimes need sick off, which all comes with extra costs. An answering service doesn't need a break from work, does need to be paid monthly, nor will it stop working after the regular working hours. The cost is also reduced for your clients because they don't have to pay before receiving a response. With a live receptionist, lengthy calls can be too costly for clients and decide to look for alternative services elsewhere. With an answering service, they pay after their issues have been addressed. It is also cheaper even if you are making lengthy calls.
Calls and Messages Are Filtered and Prioritized
There are family issues that may require urgent attention from you, especially if it is domestic violence. The children need to be safe to earn the parties involved to be protected from harm caused by the other partner. Therefore, they can contact your office any time, during the day or even at night. If your clients feel they have an urgent issue protecting their family members, answering service can filter and prioritize calls and messages. Therefore you will attend to the urgent issues and look into others later. The calls will be relayed to you for your immediate action.
Better Customer Service
An answering service offers the best to your clients because it politely responds to professional issues. Compared to a live receptionist who may ignore some calls or respond in a way that disappoints your client, an answering service will not do that. You are also ensured to have clients with urgent matters attended to promptly. Since the calls and messages are filtered and categorized depending on urgency, your clients will benefit from your service. Happy clients will talk good about your business and have more clients contact our family law firm.
It’s Easy to Delegate Duties
An answering service does not need to have a live person to make it work. Simple setup, and you are good to go. An answering service takes up the receptionists' role because it can answer the client’s calls and respond to the message at all times. Therefore, your staff can attend to other duties you assign them without having to worry that there are clients who haven’t gotten the feedback they need from your family law firm. You will also attend to pressing matters as you plan to meet with the others in their scheduled appointments.
Tips to Keep You Competitive in Your Family Law Firm Business
Family issues are so many, and most of them need legal representation to be solved. Many family law firms are willing to take up the challenge to ensure they offer the best to clients and ensure that they come back or refer other people for the services. Competition is high, and you should ensure you keep pace with the business. Some of the tips you can use to keep up with the competition are:
Participate In Community Activities
There are social activities that you can engage in with your community and bring you future business. You may also decide to sponsor a project that a particular community wants to do. The community will be happy about your involvement with the community issues, which may prove that you are concerned about community welfare. A client from that community in need of help with their family issues will look for you. If you give good services, they will refer others to you, and your business will undoubtedly move a step ahead.
Start A Website
Having a website for your family law firm will help clients understand what you do and the type of service they expect to receive from you. They will also have an idea of your charges and get prepared in case of anything. A website will also give directions to where your business is located so your faraway clients can find you without much hustle. To make the website appealing to your clients, there is important information you should not leave out. They are:
- Your professional and educational background
- Information about your law firm registration
- Information about the cases you have handled and have turned out successfully
- The clients’ reviews on your website regarding experience with dental services
Challenges You Are Likely to Face When Dealing With Your Clients
- Family matters are very sensitive and need you to be attentive and professional when handling them. You have to dedicate yourself to do everything possible to win the case, may it be a divorce, child support, custody, or child adoption cases. You need to assure your clients that you are there to help them get justice for whatever issue they face. That is not always the case because the presented evidence is not enough to have your clients win the case. The clients may never want to contact you anymore because they assume that you are not competent in your profession.
- There are other times you may be in a proceeding, and a message is relayed to you that there is an urgent family issue that needs attention. If you decide to move and listen to their issues, you lose an opportunity because you will waste valuable time where you would have concluded the case you were handling and have ample time to attend to the others. You cannot work with divided attention, a challenge that lawyers face when they want to offer services to different clients simultaneously.
- Another challenge is to balance your time when dealing with clients. As much as you want to ensure that you give your clients the best services, there is no way you can handle more than one client at once. An answering service is one way of having the challenge solved because they will get the feedback they need as you attend to other clients.
- Managing clients’ expectations is another challenge you are likely to face as you practice your career. Clients with pending family issues expect to be contacted after leaving a message or making a phone call. Suppose you cannot have all the clients called back, they may get disappointed at your services, which may result in a loss of trust. Some clients will be patients and may even contact your office once again. The other will be frustrated and will look for help elsewhere and that will be a lost opportunity.
- Choosing the right answering service can be a challenge because you want one that will offer various services for your clients of diverse cultures. You may decide to have a cheap answering service to save on cost but lose many clients due to poor service or unreliability. An effective answering service should answer calls, respond to messages professionally, offer bilingual services, and prioritize calls depending on urgency. In that way, all your clients will have their legal issues looked into promptly. Answering service shuls also offer services after the working hours and should relay urgent issues to you despite the time. Trust will be created between you and your clients because they will be confident that you are available at all times to listen to them.
With advancements in technology, the last thing clients want is to have their calls go unanswered or have their messages not responded. Answering services provide many services that will boost your business, as long as you are doing your best to offer the best legal services for families. Use an answering service to increase the chance of winning more clients to your law firm.
