We contacted this attorney to schedule a meeting and noticed he was offering callers a recorded menu.
When we measured the length of his incoming calls, we learned that too many callers hung up within sixty seconds without reaching a real person or leaving a voicemail. Something had to change.
WHAT WE LEARNED ABOUT LAWYERS AND PHONE CALLS
Attorneys must have their telephones answered by a living person – every call, all 24 hours, every day of the year.
This attorney took our advice and hired an answering service to handle after-hours calls. He recently told us that using the answering service has doubled the number of his new clients.
In the October/November period, this attorney picked up 27 new clients. In the December/January period, with the new answering service, he acquired 55 new clients.
He asked us if the number of incoming calls had also doubled, but his incoming calls actually slightly declined in the December/January period.
The higher number of new clients was entirely attributable to the new way this attorney’s incoming calls are answered.
CAN YOU KNOW HOW INCOMING CALLS ARE GENERATED?
Dialogtech is a technology that determines how your incoming calls are generated.
If your internet marketing company has done its online work properly, and a visitor reaches your website because he or she was led there by that work and the links that go with it, the telephone number that the visitor sees on your website changes automatically.
Thus, you can see exactly how many incoming telephone calls your internet marketing company is actively generating.
When we compared this attorney’s new client numbers for October and November – 27 – against 55 new clients in December and January, it’s clear. The first thing a prospective client wants is to speak with a living person.
We’ve arrived at the same conclusion time and time again. Whenever an attorney transitions from automated phone answering to having calls fielded by a living person, the attorney’s intake numbers go up, and so does the number of new clients.
WHAT ARE YOUR TELEPHONE ANSWERING OPTIONS?
How are calls answered when your offices are closed? Some attorneys have calls forwarded to their personal phones. Many use 24-hour answering services.
Don’t ever, if you can possibly avoid it, have incoming calls sent to voicemail. You’ll receive more calls and acquire more clients when a real person answers your phones.
Let us know your own experiences with telephone answering strategies. Tell us in the comment section below, and we’ll share your experience.
And if you still use automated telephone answering, it’s something you must fix as quickly as possible.