What To Do When Your Law Firm Receptionist Moves On

Any time an employee moves on from your office, it can feel like a big loss. But, when your law firm receptionist leaves, you’re essentially losing the heartbeat of your firm. Whether it be answering phone calls, taking messages, performing new client intake, transferring calls, or scheduling appointments, your receptionist does a lot to keep your practice up and running.

Obviously your firm can’t survive without these functions being performed on a daily basis, and most busy attorneys won’t have the time to handle all these duties themselves. So if your receptionist has told you that they’ll soon be moving on, and your pleas and begging for them to say have been unsuccessful, you’ll need to have both a short term plan and long term plan ready for handling their departure. In this blog post, we’ll tell you exactly what to do in this scenario.

The Best Short Term Plan

Finding the right receptionist takes time, and it is certainly not a process you want to rush. Answering the phone for a law office requires a lot of expertise, and throwing someone right into the fire of fielding client calls without any specialized training can produce disastrous results for your firm.

Chances are if you rush the process of bringing a new receptionist into your office, you’ll be looking for another receptionist before too long, after either realizing you picked the wrong person or seeing your new hire become overwhelmed by a too steep learning curve and quit. So take weeks, even months if needed, to find and properly train that perfect receptionist for your firm, and while you’re doing so, let the Answering Legal team step in and help handle your office’s calls.

Our receptionists are available to answer your incoming calls 24/7, and will guarantee that all of your customers and prospective clients get to speak with a live person. Leaving your calls to be fielded by an answering machine simply won’t cut it these day, and if you don’t understand why, it is crucial that you read this post.

All of our receptionists have been already extensively trained in answering legal phone calls and performing legal intakes on your new clients, so you won’t have to waste your valuable time teaching them how to answer your phones. And with our affordable pricing plans, there is no better short-term law firm receptionist coverage option to choose from, than Answering Legal.

The Best Long Term Plan

Once your new in-office receptionist has been hired and properly trained, you have the option to just move on from Answering Legal. We don’t force our customers to sign any contracts, so you’re free to leave at anytime without financial penalty. But, once you see the way our phone answering team impacts your firm and improves your ability to capture new leads, we’re not so sure you’ll want to.

When using our service, smaller firms may find that our service eliminates any need for them to employ an in-office receptionist at all. All the receptionist duties mentioned at the beginning of this post, are things that can be expertly handled by our receptionist team.

Our law firm receptionist team:

• Never misses a call
• Takes accurate client messages and can send them to your smartphone via text and or email
• Performs client intake with questions personalized towards your firm
• Transfers and forwards your calls in a variety of ways
• Can schedule appointments right into your calendar upon request

So you could in theory save yourself a bunch of money, and let us exclusively answer your calls. Of course some of you might be thinking...

We know that some lawyers will still want a receptionist present in office to provide assistance with non-phone related duties. These attorneys may want to consider using their in-office hire and the Answering Legal team in tandem. Your receptionist hire can still answer calls during working hours on your firm’s behalf, and our team will be there to pick up any calls your staff is too busy to get on the phone for. We can be your ultimate safety net, ensuring that new client opportunities never escape the grasp of your firm. You never know when a year-changing client might be dialing in, and it is imperative that your provide a live voice for their call.

Additionally, we’ll be there to capture new leads during after hours and weekends, when your receptionist is out of office. Firms that were once only able to capture new leads 40 hours a week, can now do so 168 hours a week.

Your firm can’t afford to stop working, just because your receptionist does. Put your trust in the Answering Legal team, and sign-up for a free 10-day trial of our service today!