Why You Should Let An Answering Service Handle Your Legal Intake Process

We bet we know what you’re thinking. You read that title and thought: “Legal intake is a complex and vital process. It’s different for every legal discipline, and can even vary between attorneys or firms practicing the same kind of law. How can an answering service possibly handle it for me?”

Well, the answer is simple: Answering Legal isn’t just any answering service. We specialize in answering for lawyers, and our virtual receptionists receive months of training before picking up a single phone. By the end of that training, they become experts in the legal intake process, ready to capture leads for your firm.

Of course, we’re a little biased. But we think that once you see how our virtual receptionists become legal intake experts, you’ll understand why we think we’re so great. Below, we’ll go into detail about how our virtual receptionists set us apart from other answering services.

Our Virtual Receptionists Specialize In Answering For Lawyers

Not to knock other answering services, but you’ll often find that they answer for all kinds of fields if you click through their sites long enough. That means their virtual receptionists aren’t just answering for law firms, they’re answering for dentists, accountants, car dealerships; any industry you can think of, and they’re probably answering the phones for those businesses.

That means their virtual receptionists aren’t experts, they’re generalists. Those answering services will answer for your law firm the same way they answer for an accountant’s office. You won’t find that with Answering Legal. It’s in our name: we specialize in answering for lawyers. But what does that mean?

What Makes Our Virtual Receptionists So Great?

Well, first and foremost, our virtual receptionists undergo lengthy recruiting and training processes before ever picking up a phone for a law firm. This lets us ensure that we’re always providing the best answering we can. They’re trained in general phone etiquette, as well as how to answer for law firms specifically.

Because our virtual receptionists only answer for lawyers, they understand exactly what the leads dialing your firm are looking for: help. An impersonal experience would be the absolute last thing someone wanted when searching for legal help, and our virtual receptionists understand that. That’s why they engage in active listening, taking down notes and information from callers to make them feel their problems are being heard.

Our Virtual Receptionists Are Legal Intake Experts

Even if our virtual receptionists are highly-trained, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re prepared to handle the vital legal intake process. After all, without legal intake, you wouldn’t have the information you need to follow up with a potential client. Nothing is more embarrassing than hearing “I already told your receptionist all this.” Leads who feel that they’re not being heard are not likely to become clients, after all.

Most importantly, however, our virtual receptionists understand that their job is lead capturing. They’re there to ensure that the leads they’re engaging with don’t hang up and dial your competition as soon as they’re off the phone. After all, an important part of the legal intake process is how it feels for the prospective client. After having shared whatever tale of woe brings them to your door and having been asked specific questions, they’ll feel like they’re already in the process of hiring your firm.

But how do we get from answering for attorneys to performing legal intakes? It’s another key part of the training process: we train all our virtual receptionists in answering for as many legal fields as we can through lessons, tutorials, and roleplays. Our virtual receptionists are trained to ask questions the clients may leave out when telling their story. Are you a personal injury attorney? Our legal intake experts will make sure to ask if the caller missed any work due to the injury, for example.

Our Virtual Receptionists Will Answer The Phone Like You Would

So, we’ve established that our virtual receptionists are highly-trained at answering for lawyers and experts in the legal intake process. But maybe you’re still in doubt. Maybe you think that your legal intake process is too specialized to be handled by an answering service. Attorneys, after all, are detail-oriented people, and are often perfectionists, spending hours finely honing a process until it runs exactly how they want it to.

This is another way in which Answering Legal stands out from other answering services: we’re highly customizable. Want callers to be greeted with more than just “You’ve reached the law office of Jane Smith. How may I help you?” You can completely customize your greeting to make sure leads know they’ve reached your firm, and not any other.

This customization extends to the legal intake process. You design the script our virtual receptionists use when performing legal intake, because you know exactly what case information you need. Once the legal intake is performed to your exact specifications, you’ll receive all that information in an email or text message so that you can perform your follow-up with everything you need.

Answering Legal Does It All

We’ve shown that Answering Legal isn’t like other answering services, and that’s why you should hire us to handle your legal intake process. Because we act as an extension of your firm, you’ll never have to worry that someone unqualified is answering your phones. After all, you designed the script, so it’s almost like you’re answering the phones yourself.

And if you already have a reception staff, Answering Legal can still provide support. Want to be ready to handle clients any time they call? Our virtual receptionists are available 24/7. Want to expand your client base to include local Spanish-speakers? Our virtual receptionists are bilingual, so you can forward your Spanish-language calls to us. Our service can even be programmed to pick up the phone after the third or fourth ring, so even if your receptionist is already on the phone, you won’t ever send someone to voicemail.

Ready to let us handle your legal intake process, freeing you to work on your actual legal tasks? Click here or call 631-686-9700 to sign up for our free trial. For a limited time, we are also offering firms that sign up with our service their first 400 minutes free.