Family law is a tremendously diverse field where clients calling a family attorney do it with a sense of urgency. Most of these customers are filled with emotions because they call seeking help with divorce, adoption, child support, or domestic abuse. As a family attorney, you need to be available for these clients when they call to reassure them and be available for emergency cases. Balancing between these long emotional conversations and court meetings or meetings with opposing parties can be difficult.

Fortunately, at the Best Call Center, we understand how family issues can be emotionally and mentally exhausting, which is why we have got you covered. Our family law answering service will provide customer support and assure your callers that there is someone available to pick their call. We have virtual receptionists ready to answer calls professionally, determine the type of family matter the caller has, dispatch the message appropriately, and let the new caller know that someone will be available to discuss their family matter.

What is a Family Law Answering Service?       

A family law answering service is a call center where calls of a family attorney are routed to and answered by live operators. It means you forward your calls to a call center using a special call forwarding number. The system will then recognize your incoming calls enabling the live virtual receptionists to speak to your customers when busy with court proceedings or meetings. An answering service works like the voicemail on your mobile phone, because it answers the calls that you are unable to respond to. While with the conventional receptionists, the caller will hear a recorded greeting, a live operator from an answering service will speak directly to the client.

Remember that you must be available and eager to help your customers with their legal problems as a family attorney. If a person calls because they want updates on their custody, divorce, or child-related issue. In that case, they need to speak to a live person who will link them with a family attorney who can provide the updates immediately. Others want to know how they can hire a family attorney for their case. Screening these phone calls to know who wants what, answering questions, or conducting client intake takes too much of your time hence the reason you need to hire an answering service. We will handle all your administrative needs and let you concentrate on other critical issues.

Challenges Family Law Attorneys Face When Dealing With Customers

When handling family matters such as divorce, child adoption, child support, or custody, you need to focus all your energy on winning the case. You cannot afford to personally answer every caller regardless of how much you want to give them reassurance you are there for them.

In some incidents, the call, text, or email might arrive when you are negotiating with an opposing party or during a divorce case proceeding. Other times, answering phone calls might be a waste of your productive time. Maybe it’s an exceedingly anxious client who wants every update in their divorce or child adoption case or a customer asking for the same document the tenth time.

Calls like these get in the way of you performing the duties your clients hired you to perform. As a family law attorney, you must learn to balance between these constant calls from customers who expect nothing but receptive and bespoke services and your core duties.

The primary challenge family law practices face is managing the expectations of clients. Many customers, especially those with pending divorce or child custody cases, assume that their family attorney will be available around the clock to respond to their calls, messages, or emails. If the call goes unanswered or a customer gets a late reply to their email, it might result in loss of trust. It will worsen if you answer the call when you seem irritated or overwhelmed because they will feel as if you don’t care about their needs.

With the latest advancements in technology, clients’ needs have also evolved because they want immediate response even when it’s clear an answer will take time. As a family attorney, you have to be responsive and responsible at the same time. The best way to do that is by retaining the services of the Best Call Center.

How Does an Answering Service Work in Family Law?

In case you have experienced any of the above challenges in your law firm, it’s an indication that you need the help of a family law answering service. At the Best Call Center, we will ensure that none of your customer calls goes unanswered during any time of the day. Whether it’s an emergency or need for technical support, our virtual receptionist will be more than willing to talk to your clients. This will in turn help you maximize your billable hours.

Our answering services are intended to ensure that you don’t lose customers to other family law attorneys. Remember that if someone is calling with a family matter, he or she is desperate for your help. Not answering such a call might be an indication of unreliability, which means you will lose customers. Fortunately, with our answering service, you no longer need to be afraid of losing business to competitors when you are too busy to answer phone calls. We have professional operators who will ensure you get new customers and retain the existing ones.

If you are considering our services, then you must be wondering how it works. First, you need to sign up for our services. Our system is user friendly and has simplified the process of signing up. It is a matter of a few minutes, and you will be ready to get started. You just need to provide the correct information about your family law practice. When signing up, the first thing to do is pick your business’s toll-free or local number. If you want more than one local number, we can have one ready for you, but it will come with additional costs. Once the number has been placed, you are ready to submit your order.

After receiving your order, we will send you an activation link that will take you to our online setup wizard. At this stage, you will specify the kind of calls you would like us to answer and how you would like the calls to be handled. When you are done giving instructions on the calls that we should handle, you will have completed the setup process, and your account will be active. We will then publish your new number, and if you want us to use the existing one, you can forward it to the new number.

It’s worth noting that set up is easy, and our team of specialists will walk you through the process. The whole process will take around one hour, and you will be good to go.

Family law practices face unique challenges from other businesses. For this reason, once your account is up and running, you need to customize its elements to suit the specific needs of your practice. Our virtual receptionists will only rely on the customized script that you or your employees will provide so that when we speak to your customers, they can feel as if they are talking to your family law firm directly. We will provide a few representatives to work with your employees to write down the tailored script. Every phone call we answer will be handled based on the script. For customization reasons, we will give your customers an experience similar to the one they get when they call your office directly to ensure that your business is perfectly and professionally represented.

Keep in mind that we are here to satisfy your needs, which means that we will respond to calls and emails the way you want us to. However, for that to happen, we need to be on the same page by coordinating with your team. What makes us stand out is that we have intake specialists who are available to discuss your business needs and the results you are aiming to achieve by working with live virtual receptionists. By doing so, we can work with your customers smoothly and act not only like your partners but also as a lean-to your practice.

During the initial meeting with our intake specialists, some of the questions that you should be prepared to answer are:

  • What time of the day or night do you want us to handle your calls?
  • What form of calls will we be answering? It could be appointments, emergencies, questions, or updates.
  • What kind of response would you like us to give your callers if they ask to speak to their family law attorney directly?
  • Should all calls be transferred, or are we supposed to send messages through text or email?
  • Would you like us to let your callers know they are speaking to an answering service, or do you want us to act like the conventional receptionists?
  • How would you prefer your callers to be handled during business hours instead of when you are closed?
  • Would you prefer us to categorize your callers based on existing or new customers during call screening?

On top of these questions, we expect you to give a comprehensive introduction of your family law practice and what you are aiming for by enlisting our answering service. You can partner with us to improve customer service, schedule appointments, or handle a surge in callers. It’s up to you to be clear on your objectives so that we can handle your customers as an extension of your practice.

After you have enlisted our services and developed a tailored script on how customer calls will be answered, our virtual receptionists will be ready to begin their work.

Ways You Can Send Us Your Phone Calls

The fashion in which you forward your calls mainly depends on your operating hours, the kind of help your family law offices can provide, and your general preference.

You can choose a time of the day call forwarding where you turn on and off your call forwarding at specific hours of the day. If you prefer our live operators to answer your phone calls when on another phone or when unavailable to answer your callers, you should choose rollover call forwarding. Under this type of call forwarding, we will pick calls on your behalf after three to four rings.

When you want us to answer all your calls and capture the caller’s information on the first ring, you should choose total screening and transfer call forwarding. In case you want us to answer all your calls with zero transfers and get detailed information from the caller, you should choose full-time call forwarding.

Call Patching

When it comes to call-patching, you are the person to determine when our answering service will respond to callers, how messages will be received, and the questions you would like us to ask your callers. If a customer makes a call, our live operators will put the call on hold, then try to contact you or any other family attorney in your firm on a different line. If someone answers the call, our live operators will patch the two lines together, then drop off from the line, and the caller will be connected to a family attorney. The virtual receptionist won’t be on the call, so you will speak to your client as if you answered the phone call yourself. The advantage of call patching is that you pay for the time the virtual receptionist is on the line, and once the operator drops off the line, our billing stops.

In case you are wondering what will happen during call patching when you don’t want to speak to a customer, then we have you covered. Our operators will screen the call and qualify the new caller. If it’s someone you would like to speak to, we will link you to the caller, but if you don’t want to speak to the client, we will take the message on your behalf and forward it to your inbox. This can help you a lot, especially when you are spending personal time or when you feel irritated or overwhelmed to speak to a client.

Message Taking

If you are unavailable for calls or the caller doesn’t qualify for patching, we can take the message of the caller and send it to your inbox via email or text. Our message taking process is detailed because we strive to ensure our customers get pertinent information. We will send the messages to you containing the name of the caller, phone number, topic of discussion, and the message the caller wanted to leave to the family attorney.

The rates are based on serving your customers, whether it’s answering calls, scheduling appointments, responding to texts or emails, and webchat. With this kind of flat rate, you can estimate the amount of money you will spend in a month based on the time we spend speaking to your customers and the number of calls received in a day. Because for us, customer satisfaction is key, we don’t force you into long term contracts.

Services Provided by Our Family Law Answering Service

At the Best Call Center, we help small or large family law practices around the U.S. grow. Our virtual receptionists do more than answering your calls. Some of the services we provide include:

  1. 24/7 Answering Service

A customer in need of the services of a family attorney can call any time of the day. Cases of family disputes or domestic violence can occur anytime pushing someone to think of filing for divorce or child custody. A customer like that will search for a family law practice on the internet even after business hours. With our family law answering service, you can be guaranteed that our live operators will be available around the clock to respond to customer calls. That way, you are sure any caller in need of your services will not take the business to your competitors as professionals will be available to address their needs even during holidays and weekends.

  1. Scheduling Appointments

For family attorneys, time is money, and the last thing you want is to sit in the office the whole day without generating income. At the Best Call Center, we have an appointment scheduling feature that ensures your day is well scheduled, and none of your billable hours goes to waste.

Remember that a family attorney must schedule an initial appointment to discuss the case in a family law case. These initial meetings are usually lengthy and emotional, which is why proper scheduling is critical. We will work with your scheduling software to ensure customers who call to book appointments are arranged when you have open slots in your calendar. We offer scheduling and rescheduling services at no additional charges.

  1. Bilingual Staff

Being responsive to customers in a personable and professional fashion is paramount to your success. The U.S. has a diverse consumer base with a recent Pew Research Center study, showing that 31 percent of our country’s population is Hispanics. If your receptionists cannot speak this language, you will lose a significant number of prospective clients. At the Best Call Center, we offer bilingual services to our customers at no extra costs. Having live operators who can speak other languages like Spanish is a great way to show that you value this population. They will be more comfortable choosing your firm for representation in their family matter.

Other Services We Provide

On top of the services mentioned above, we provide online call schedules, detailed reports and analytics, call patching, message taking, and instant activation. These features are tailored to give you practice a competitive edge over other family law attorneys as they promote quality customer service.

How a Family Law Answering Service Will Boost the Reputation of Your Firm

When it comes to hiring a family law attorney, clients look for a highly reputable legal practice. Building a reputation is a process that takes years, and it’s boosted by what clients have to say about your firm and their experiences. The best way to build the reputation of your practice is by hiring a family law answering service. Discussed below are some of the ways a live virtual receptionist will help build your reputation:

Give a Better First Impression to Your Prospective Clienteles

If you are a startup in the family law practice, you probably don’t have the employees you need to answer all incoming calls. The few family law attorneys and interns in your organization will be focused on winning cases and research, which means you won’t have people to assist your callers. This will portray a bad image to potential clients, and they might be forced to take the business elsewhere. Luckily, with a family law answering service, all customers who call or email will get an immediate response, which creates a good first impression. Such clients will have positive things to say about your practice, thus building a strong reputation.

Quality Customer Service for Existing Clients

If you are already established with existing clients, an answering service will make sure all calls from existing customers are answered promptly, and those that require urgency are forwarded to the right family attorneys.

Live operators will also free you and your employees from administrative duties so that you can focus on what is important to the firm, which is winning court cases and negotiations.

Find a Attorney Answering Service Near Me 

The Best Call Center helps family law attorneys nationwide to communicate with their customers, schedule appointments, and provide timely updates. Our friendly live operators are ready to speak to your customers politely, no matter the emotions of the client. Call us today at 800-385-4656 to speak to our intake specialist or sign up for our services.