As a criminal lawyer, it can be challenging to maintain a healthy work and life balance. This is because people need to reach you urgently when at their lowest of moments. Because you have a duty to address their criminal challenges irrespective of the time of day or night, you can ease some of your work by hiring a professional answering service. We understand that each call is essential. Hiring us can help you maintain and expand your client base by ensuring that each client who calls your firm gets answers, feels valued, and has the best possible experience.

As you research your cases, go to court or meet your clients for consultation and follow-ups, we will take care of clients who call you or send messages. We have a solid team of professional phone operators who can help convert prospective clients into actual clients. Our services can help you run your business smoothly and strengthen your reputation.

Understanding How a Criminal Law Firm Answering Service Works

Research shows that thousands of people are charged with criminal offenses each year. Well-established criminal law firms, therefore, receive a large number of calls each day from potential clients. An in-house receptionist may not be able to handle all the calls, especially from callers who call or text your firm after hours.

This is where a professional answering service comes in handy. The right firm will have a reliable team of skilled and competent operators who work in shifts to provide round-the-clock assistance. This ensures that you are not limited to your business hours, and your firm is available to its clients 24/7/365.

So, how does a criminal law firm answering service work?

It’s simple! When your clients call, they can reach you or your receptionist. If you are not in a position to pick their calls because you are swamped with work, it’s past business hours, or you are representing another client in court, those calls will be directed to your answering service.

Depending on your preferences, the calls may even reach the answering service first. This allows the operators to answer and screen the calls to determine whether they can wait until you are available or they should be forwarded urgently.

Reliable answering services know how to ensure that this process is seamless. Not even your clients will know that they spoke to someone that is not within your office. The operators take the time to understand your needs and requirements, ensuring that you are satisfied with how each call is handled.

Important Qualities to Look For In the Right Answering Service

Sometimes, a criminal lawyer is the only thing that stands between a defendant and incarceration. Nothing can ruin your reputation faster than your potential clients spreading the word that you are never available when they call your office. Virtual receptionists ensure you are available each day, all day. This allows you to maintain a good reputation and focus on your criminal cases, not your phone.

Here are top qualities to look for in an exemplary answering service for your criminal law firm:

Efficiency

Professional virtual receptionists are personable, warm, and pleasant. They can help you qualify your calls to sieve out potential leads and clients who need to reach you urgently. The receptionists can also take detailed messages, allowing you to call your clients back whenever it is most convenient.

Ensuring efficiency also means certifying that calls are not longer than necessary. This will help you save money that you can use to increase necessary resources that enhance your winning chances in court.

Empathy

Criminal lawyers handle serious, sometimes life-changing cases. Your clients deserve to be treated with compassion and respect, irrespective of their situation. Professional virtual assistants are trained to show empathy and ensure that your clients feel valued and appreciated. They have the skills needed to reassure your clients that you understand their situations’ gravity and have their back.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality is a matter of paramount importance when dealing with legal issues. Reliable virtual receptionists understand this and will therefore treat your clients the same way you would. This includes respecting their privacy and ensuring that all information offered does not fall into the wrong hands.

Services Offered By a Lawyer Answering Service

With the right answering service, you can focus on what’s essential, offering your clients dependable legal representation. The skilled phone operators will take care of your calls and take messages 24 hours a day, seven days per week. An ideal service package will be customizable and flexible enough to match your firm’s needs and requirements.

An ideal answering service for a criminal attorney law firm can lend a hand with:

  • Scheduling appointments

  • Taking messages

  • Call routing and transfer

  • Dispatching urgent calls

  • Lead qualification

  • Taking after hour calls and messages

  • Bilingual reception

We integrate with Customer Relations Management (CRM) platforms to manage your calls more efficiently. Through the CRM, you can access detailed information from the calls at a moment’s notice. Better still, you can assess your call data, messages, invoices, and more through our online portal. Generally, CRMs help to keep things more organized for smooth data tracking.

Moreover, we also use the best mobile apps for Android and iOS mobile phones. The idea is to afford our clients the convenience of receiving their massages and managing their accounts at any time, from anywhere.

The Benefits of Hiring a Criminal Law Firm Answering Service

Working alongside a dedicated team of virtual assistants will leave you reaping more than a handful of perks. Skilled phone operators understand that excellent customer service and great relationships go hand in hand. We know that the success of your criminal law firm hinges on your ability to build great relationships with your clients from the first time they call you.

Here are just a few of the many benefits your firm stands to enjoy once you enlist an answering service:

Professional Representation

For criminal attorneys, maintaining an impeccable reputation is imperative. After all, an ill reputation is only likely to make prospective clients hesitate on whether they can trust you with their lives. Whether you are looking to maintain your good name or spruce it up, we have your best interests at heart.

The first thing we seek to understand is your business standards and how you want to be represented. This ensures that our teams of operators know precisely how to match your expectations. We will ensure that no information slips through the cracks and partner with you in keeping your clients happy and feeling valued.

Keep Your Business Running 24/7/365

Law firms close after business hours. They also close for various other reasons, including power outages, weather catastrophes, and emergency pandemics. On the other hand, an answering service is always active, even during an apocalypse. Our business is to ensure that you never miss an important call or message from your clients.

Convert Leads into Actual Business

Each time your phone rings, we view this as an opportunity to help you maintain a client or expand your client base. You can focus your time and resources on winning your current cases as we ensure that you secure new ones. We will listen to your clients and answer simple questions. Moreover, we screen calls to help you maintain a comfortable work calendar, schedule appointments, and dispatch urgent messages. Our system is designed to keep everyone happy, including your existing clients and potential clients.

Bilingual Answering

America is one of the most culturally diverse nations in the world. If a client needs your help, but cannot speak English, worry not. We offer bilingual representation, ensuring that your clients feel comfortable coming to you, irrespective of their ethnicity. For instance, a client speaking Spanish is likely to feel at home in your firm once we prove that language is no barrier. Generally, this will drive new revenue to your business.

Respond To Clients in Real-Time

Criminal attorneys spend limited hours in the office. Most of the time, they are running back and forth from one courthouse to another. They may also be running from the office to an in-office appointment with a client. In short, you may lack time to answer calls on your landline or even check your emails.

We use the finest virtual receptionist apps for your convenience. These apps are compatible with Android and iPhone, and they allow you to receive urgent calls and messages on the go. Now your clients don’t have to worry about your availability even when your schedules are super tight.

Less Interruption and Enhanced Productivity

Retaining an in-house team of the best criminal lawyers in town is certainly not easy on your wallet. The last thing you need is to pay your team top dollar only to spend most of their time answering calls. More often than not, a ringing phone is a distraction. This is more so the case when you are focused on sensitive court matters.

Instead of your lawyers wasting time picking calls from all kinds of callers, including telemarketers, we can ensure that their focus is on more pressing issues. You don’t have to worry about losing future business for failing to pick your calls because we will have you covered. Let us worry about the calls from existing and new customers, and you can worry about performing crucial law firm duties without interruptions.

Reduced Caller Waiting Time

Calling your lawyer with no response is downright demoralizing. Something else equally frustrating is waiting on the line for what seems like an eternity before someone finally picks your call. One way to ensure that your clients don’t get frustrated way before reaching you is to work with an answering service.

We do have a dependable team of professional phone operators for each of our law firm clients. The team dedicated to picking calls for your firm will be sufficient enough to reduce the caller wait time drastically. It’s always our pride when we can pick calls within the first three rings.

Better Service for Your Existing and Clients

There is more to what an answering service for criminal defense law firms does than meets the eye. Apart from ensuring that anyone who calls your firm talks to a live person within the first few rings, we also ensure that their experience is worthwhile. By upholding the highest standards of professionalism, we also safeguard your reputation.

Think of it this way, when your business grows, we grow! Our interests are aligned, and this makes it our business to ensure 100% customer satisfaction.

Affordable Pricing

Contrary to popular belief, our services are pretty affordable. Maintaining a whole team of trained phone operators from an answering service company may prove to be less expensive than hiring one in-house receptionist. Our services can help you streamline your operations and still make plenty of savings to reinvest in expanding your venture.

Furthermore, we believe in the need for accountability. We will therefore do more than just forward you a bill at the end of each month. Through our client porthole, you can view your account and understand the precise kind of service you are paying for. You can check the number of calls received, the number of call minutes, the number of calls transferred, and even the number of spam and wrong numbers.

Finding an Answering Service Best Suited for Your Criminal Law Firm

As a criminal defense attorney, the fate of your clients is in your hands. The lesser time you spend answering calls, the more time you have to work on your cases and increase the possibility of your clients dodging imprisonment and hefty fines. An easy way to save time and focus on staying on top of your game is to hire an answering service for criminal law firms. We will help you create the perfect receptionist script and set you up on our platform for easy and convenient data tracking. You can count on us to also help you iron out a bulletproof plan that can ensure that anyone who calls your firm can have a goodnight’s sleep knowing you have their back.