Member Article

alldayPA Legal Helps Legal Firms Make the Most of Every Phone Call

THE UK legal sector has spent years ‘paying’ for unanswered and badly handled telephone calls with lost revenues and dissatisfied clients. Help is now at hand with the launch of an innovative bespoke legal call answering solution from alldayPA, the UK’s most trusted provider of call answering services.

With alldayPA Legal, law firms have access to all the skills and support they need to transform telephone call handling from an out-of-control administrative challenge into an effective platform for business development and customer service.

The alldayPA Legal service is designed to be flexible and affordable. It can be tailored to the specific needs of law firms of any size and can include anything from ad-hoc or overflow support and out of hours call answering, to provision of a virtual switchboard.

“alldayPA Legal offers law firms more than a generic business call answering service. It is the only service on the market with legally trained call handlers who can add real value to any law firm’s marketing or business development activities. For example, they can take calls from would-be personal injury claimants or handle more general queries prompted by advertising campaigns,” said Ken Crabtree, spokesperson at alldayPA Legal.

“Because our call handlers have an understanding of the legal context, they will ask the right questions. They’re also comfortable working through bespoke scripts with potential claimants, possibly even filtering out inappropriate claims thereby minimising the chance of expensive, fee-earner time being wasted further down the line.”

Do law firms need a service like alldayPA Legal? “Yes,” Crabtree comments. “In today’s hyper-competitive legal industry, every call must not only be answered but dealt with efficiently and to the client’s satisfaction regardless of when the call is made.”

Another factor, he says, is the increase in calls made outside traditional working hours.

“The 9-5 working day is a thing of the past. Recent research conducted by alldayPA[1] highlighted an 80 per cent rise in calls to legal firms made outside normal working hours. Another factor is that, in a busy legal practice, phone calls are often regarded as an intrusion rather than a potential source of revenue. Having the phone ring out over and over again just adds to the pressure on legal firms most of which simply don’t have enough time or skilled and experienced people dedicated to handling incoming telephone calls.”

Miss the Call, Lose the Business

There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that, even in the smallest practices, at least 1500 calls[2] go unanswered every year. Research by PH Media Group found that clients calling law firms can expect to wait ten seconds longer than average before their phone call is answered. Many simply hang up and, as our research showed, 80 per cent do not call back which suggests they’re taking their business to another firm.“

So many calls, too few people

“Even when a call is answered, the client or prospect is often disappointed by the experience. In the PH Media Group survey, law firms were found to be well below average in call handling practice and expertise,” continues Crabtree.

“Whether the problem is caused by a lack of staff, pressure of work, or simply that the phone rings when there’s nobody in the office, every lost call and every unhappy or confused customer wastes time and money as well as cutting off a future revenue stream.”

Crabtree concluded: “With alldayPA Legal, law firms have the reassurance that every call is not only answered but, most importantly, handled with empathy and an understanding of the firm’s business objectives. It’s that powerful combination of enhanced client satisfaction and effective call–to-sale conversion that ultimately results in the law firm seeing a steady increase in revenues.”

For more information about alldayPA Legal, please visit www.alldayPALegal.com

[1] http://www.alldaypalegal.com/out-of-hours.html

[2] http://www.legal-mentors.com/guest-blog-tim-bishop-reveals-how-he-recaptured-control-over-the-phone/

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