On a daily basis, legal intake receptionists are responsible for a myriad of things:
- Answering hundreds of phone calls
- Responding to customer support inquiries
- Performing legal intakes
- Sending messages to law firms
- Maintaining quality control
- Performing warm call transfers for calls predetermined to be patched
- Scheduling appointments and consultations
- Assuring new client callers that their case will be handled promptly and efficiently
All of these are the main duties of a legal intake receptionist, but let’s go over the different scenarios that may arise from each phone call to discover the number of ways a legal intake receptionist might have to handle a call.
New Client Caller; Attorney has predetermined that he/she would like to be patched
Let’s say, for instance, that you want to speak to all new callers as soon as possible, and you want your legal intake receptionists to announce these potential new clients to you. Your legal intake receptionist would first answer the phone specifically for your law practice. For example, if you are the Law Offices of Tom Lawyer, your legal intake receptionist will answer: “Good morning/afternoon, thank you for calling the Law Offices of Tom Lawyer, how may I help you?” After your legal intake receptionist ascertains that the caller is a potential new client, she will take down the caller’s name, phone number, and the reason for the call. Your legal intake receptionist then lets the caller know that they will be placed on a brief hold while we get you on the line.
Your legal intake receptionist will then call you, either on your cell phone or your landline, depending on what you prefer, and will explain to you the caller’s name and what sort of legal problem they are calling about, before you can decide whether or not you want to take the call. There are two things that can happen here:
1: You decide to take the call. We then transfer that call to you without providing the caller with your cell phone number, so that your private cell phone number stays just that — private. We do not charge for talk time after the call is transferred, nor do we charge for call patching services.
2: You decide not to take the call. Your legal intake receptionist will then get back on the phone with the new client and perform the legal intake. He/she will then let the caller know that you will get back to them either as soon as you get out of court for the day, or when you are finished with your meeting. If the call comes in after hours and we can’t reach you, we will tell the caller you will get back to them early the next morning. In case you forgot, here are some quick links to go back and see the typical questions asked during the legal intake:
Once the call has concluded, your legal intake receptionist will send you your messages via text and/or email, to as many or as few numbers and addresses as you would like.
Existing Client Caller; Attorney has predetermined he/she would like to be patched
Let’s say, for instance, that you want to speak to all of your existing clients as soon as they call in, and you would like the legal intake receptionist to answer the call, politely find out the caller’s name and the reason for the call, and for them to then attempt to transfer the call to you. Your legal intake receptionist will explain the information to you and allow you to decide whether or not you would like to take the call. There are two things that can happen here:
1: You decide to take the call. We then transfer the call to you without providing the caller with your cell number, so that your cell phone number stays private. We don’t charge for the talk time after the call is patched, and we certainly don’t charge extra to patch the call.
2: You decide not to take the call. Your legal intake receptionist will then ask you when you believe you might be able to call the person back, then get back on the phone with your caller and let him/her know that you are temporarily unavailable, and that you will call him/her back within the time frame you provided.
Once the call has concluded, your legal intake receptionist will send you your messages via SMS text, email, or both. We don’t charge for messages or for sending messages to additional numbers or email addresses. You can customize which types of messages are sent to whom, so the possibilities are endless!
New Client Caller; Attorney has predetermined he/she would not like to be patched
Let’s say, in this example, that you simply want the legal intake receptionists to answer your calls, and let new client callers that you are not available to speak on the phone, but will call them back shortly, and that you simply want to receive your messages so you can have the information about the caller instantly. When a potential new client calls you, here’s what will happen:
Your legal intake receptionist performs the legal intake: If you’ve predetermined not to have the call patched into you, your legal intake receptionist will let your caller know that he/she will be asking some questions about their case, so that you can call them back shortly when you review the information. The legal intake receptionist will then perform the legal intake, asking your caller all of the questions we talked about before! In case you forgot, here are some quick links to go back and see the questions:
Existing Client Caller; Attorney has predetermined he/she would not like to be patched
In this example, you’ve determined that you want the legal intake receptionists to answer your calls, and not have existing client callers patched into you. Instead, you’d like the legal intake receptionists to politely ask the caller for his/her name, callback number, and the detailed message they would like to pass along. After the legal intake receptionist lets your caller know that you will call him/her back as soon as possible, you will receive your messages instantly, via whichever method you’ve chosen.
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