Why Lawyers Need A Phone Answering Service
Do lawyers really need an attorney answering service? The answer is no and yes. You would not advise your client to hire a personal injury attorney for his or her slip and fall accident, and the same thing goes for lawyers.
You see, lawyers work with clients who are in extremely sensitive situations and they often need to call on an expert to help them with legal issues. Lawyers can sometimes be very expensive to retain. Therefore, they will often require an answering service to handle their administrative tasks. If they do not have the time to deal with all of these tasks, they will hire an answering service to take care of it. This can save them money by avoiding having to hire more attorneys and allowing them to focus their attention on representing their clients.
ADVANTAGES
What do attorneys need from their answering service? Answering services will typically offer a variety of different services for their clients including scheduling appointments, handling faxes, managing appointments, and other clerical duties. Some of the services offered may include answering phones, scheduling meetings, and even helping with depositions.
While it is important to note that these types of services do not have any real legal authority, their job is to ensure that clients can always reach their attorneys when they need to. This is important to ensure that clients do not experience any delays in getting the representation that they need. Clients should also be able to expect to hear back within a reasonable amount of time and with a reasonable amount of detail about the issues they brought up.
LIMITATIONS
Clients should know that their service will be limited to the most important aspects of their case. This means that the service cannot be used for any type of other legal work. If a client is seeking a divorce, he or she should not have an attorney answering service handles matters involving child custody or visitation rights. The service must only handle issues related to the matter being handled.
Services will not usually charge anything for answering the phone calls. There may be an option for clients to pay a monthly fee, however. This option can be beneficial if the client cannot afford to pay a full-time fee every month. However, the bulk of the work will usually be provided free of charge.
All services are not created equally. Some companies have more reliable employees than others, but some answering services are a nightmare and some are downright awful.
QUALITY
It is important that clients find the one that will give them the best phone answering services. Answering services can be valuable to many lawyers and therefore it is a good idea to ask around before hiring the first one that comes to mind.
Some of the things to look for in a service include how easy it is to get information from the agency. Clients should be able to reach the attorney’s office and the case manager easily. They should also be able to contact the lawyer at any time of the day or night to inquire about deadlines or to get answers to questions they may have.
A quality attorney service will include promptness and dependability. If the answering service does not take the time to call the lawyer’s office or respond to a client’s questions within a reasonable amount of time, this can have a negative effect on the client’s case. Clients should also be able to reach the person responsible for their case on a regular basis. to make sure that everything is going smoothly.
LEGAL INTAKE
Attorney answering services should be willing to answer any questions a client may have before they have even asked them. They should not be afraid to take the time to explain complicated matters and give the client the names of staff members that will be on call. Answering phones should not be done on a one-on-one level, but rather they should be open to a wide variety of questions that the caller has.
Finally, the answering service should be courteous and efficient when dealing with the case manager and the office staff. Clients need to feel as though their attorney understands that they want to stay in contact with them on a regular basis. Answering services should always be professional, prompt, and responsive when dealing with the case.
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