If you’re a solo practitioner or small law firm you may want to reduce your workload while improving the performance of your legal services. To do this in a cost-effective way, hiring a virtual receptionist can handle many of the small tasks required to run a law firm.
Virtual receptionists are able to help with tasks like social media, marketing, administration, advertising, answering phones and more.
Here you’ll find a variety of places to find a virtual assistant for your law firm.
What is a Virtual Receptionist?
Virtual receptionists offer highly-skilled service solutions that can manage many of the tasks your in-house staff would do. They can operate remotely, in office, or completely computer automated.
The benefits of hiring a virtual receptions include::
- Cost effective
- Time savings
- Efficient
- Reduce labour costs
- Increased productivity
- Access to expert talent
- On-demand labour services
Virtual receptionists, also known as outsourcing, comes in the form of independent contractors, temporary office workers, remote workers, or
Are There Risks Using Virtual Receptionist?
While the benefits of having a virtual receptionist seem appealing, let’s take a moment to evaluate the risks of having a virtual receptionist.
Here’s some of the common risks that come with using a virtual receptionist:
- Security & Confidentiality Risks. Providing legal services can expose you to a range of sensitive, personal information from your clients. If you choose a virtual receptions to handle your incoming calls, be sure there job requirements are clear: take calls, make appointments, and schedule consultation. Keeping sensitive information and data secure is a top priority at a law firm.
- Quality Risks. Situations where quality becomes a risk include outsourcing calls to countries where language and cultural barriers exist. Potential clients may become frustrated explaining their needs to someone who is assigned simply to book appointments and set up an initial consultation.
- Reputation Risks. Virtual Receptionists is another way of saying “outsourcing.” When you’re outsourcing work to other countries, it can sometimes lead to bad publicity and it may affect other staff working in house who may worry that they’ll lose their job to a cheaper, outsourcing solution.
When deciding how you’ll use a virtual receptionist at your law firm, if the risks outweigh the benefits, you should avoid including these outsourcing solutions at your law firm.
Law Firm Virtual Receptionists
If you’re busy providing legal advice or in the middle of a consultation, having an agent answering calls can increase the likelihood of securing new clients.
Services like AnsweringLegal provide dedicated call center solutions for law firms. They offer the following services:
- Call handling
- Message taking
- Call routing
- Legal intake
- Customer support
- Polite and professional customer experience
Call center virtual receptionist can be given a professional script to handle a range of questions and types of phone calls. Other services can provide 24/7 legal answering services to reduce missed opportunities at your law firm.
Here are a few more call answering services you can consider for your law firm:
PatLive – Offers 24/7 legal answering.
- Pat Live provides virtual receptionists employed from the United States. They can help your law firm with message taking, appointment scheduling, lead collection, event scheduling, after hour agents, and more. With 27 years experience, Pat Live offer competitive virtual receptionist solutions for all business types.
- Hours of operation: 24/7 services.
- Pricing: $99 per month (50 call minutes) to $899 (1000 call minutes); provides additional features and a free 14-day trial.
Conversational – Offers friendly virtual receptionists in North America.
- Conversational is an industry leading virtual receptionist service provider. Their team of professional and friendly receptionists come from the United States and Canada. They have over 14 years experience and are one of the few with 100% North America only receptionists.
- Hours of operation: Custom operation solutions.
- Pricing: $300 per month (600 call minutes) to $1000 per month (2400 call minutes); offers a 30-day free trial.
RubyReceptionist – Offers professional virtual receptionists and a mobile app to synchronize and manage all calls effectively.
- Ruby Receptionists is a popular virtual receptionist service used by smaller law firms. They provide you with your own phone number which can be used to transfer to different lines and use detailed instructions to handle any situation coming into your office.
- Hour of Operation: 8 am to 12 am EST + 5 am to 9 pm PST (can also operate on weekends)
- Pricing: $259 per month (100 call minutes) to $989 per month (500 call minutes); includes 21 day money back guarantee.
AlertCommunications – Offers bilingual virtual receptionists and provide services exclusively for the legal industry.
- Alert Communications has been providing their services since 1965 and use a client intake call centre strategy with their virtual receptionists. Instead of taking a call and transferring it to you, these virtual receptionists can handle any call volume and turn them into prospective clients at your law firm.
Since Alert Communications is exclusive to the legal industry, their virtual receptionists are trained to use and understand legal terminology giving you that added edge of professional at your law office.
- Hours of Operation: 24/7 services.
- Pricing: Contact a sales representative to receive a quote for your law firm; requires a 1-month upfront refundable deposit.
Answer 1 – Offer a tech based virtual receptionist that can also provide web chat, text messaging, emails and more.
- Answer 1 offers virtual receptionists for businesses of all kinds and every size. If you have a website for your law firm, their software system can be integrated to add additional intaking solutions. You don’t have to feel restricted to answering phone calls only and can include web chats and other virtual methods for prospective clients to contact your law firm.
- Hour of operation: 24/7 services.
- Pricing: $90 one-time setup fee; $239 per month (100 call minutes) to $749 per month (500 call minutes); provides a 21 day free trial.
Alternative Law Firm Solutions
Looking for more ways to make your law firm run more efficiently? Try these software solutions to reduce your workload and focus on providing quality legal services: