Ask any lawyer and they’ll tell you about the flurry of different people they have to contend with on a daily basis—clients, judges, police officers, other attorneys, just to name a few. In an industry that’s already highly demanding, staying in contact with all of those people can feel like an extra burden on your shoulders. There are ways to help ease that burden, though, namely in making sure you have easy and simple forms of communication. The first step to doing this is getting a proper business phone system for your law firm. Here are just a few ways how it can help:
Efficiently manage incoming calls with auto attendant and intelligent call routing
An auto attendant provides an automated greeting to every person who calls into your law office. It then provides a menu for your callers to choose from so that they can be rerouted to the proper person or department that they’re trying to contact. Intelligent call routing is similar in that it will map your inbound phone calls to ring specific extensions, even pushing calls to your cellphone in the case of power outages. This not only means that your clients will be able to reach their attorneys faster, but it also means that you won’t need to have your receptions field through hundreds of calls each day.
Stay productive in the field with a softphone
In our previous blog post, we talked all about softphones and how they can help your business, and this includes law firms. While not all lawyers practice in court, attorneys do, and as such, they’re often away from their desk or out of the office. As a result, it’s vital that they have a phone that keeps them connected at all times. A softphone can do just that. With softphone technology, all you need is a device that has a speaker and mic and you’re all set to make and receive calls. You can even manage contacts, mask your caller ID as a business phone, reroute calls, and more.
Keep detailed records with speech analytics and call recording
Speech analytics is like a personal stenographer for your phone—every call is transcribed into text and is then searchable by key words or phrases. Call recording is also a valuable tool by being able to listen to old phone conversations. In a world where facts are everything, this can be extremely helpful in finding key information for a specific case.
Maintain your credibility
If you want clients, you need credibility. After all, you are dealing with many clients’ personal lives and affairs, so they need to make sure that you’re a legitimate law firm before they sign on with you. One way to build and maintain your credibility is if your law office has an official, certified business phone number, such as with a direct dial number. A direct dial number gives every attorney in your office a private business phone number to use in place of a personal cellphone number. This will not only give your attorneys and law firm added credibility, but it will also ensure privacy and a separation of your work and personal life.
Enhance productivity with software integration
Software integration streamlines your different programs, allowing your website, customer database, and business phone system to work as one. One feature that is specifically beneficial to law firms is an account code feature. This allows you to enter a client code for automation with legal practice management software. By integrating different software programs and allowing for increase automation, your lawyers and attorneys are spending less time fighting with technology and more time helping their clients.
Always stay up-to-date with voicemail to email transcription
In law, things can change rapidly. That means you need to be aware of everything that happens, at all times. That can seem impossible, though, especially if you’re caught up in court or busy with other clients. Simply put, there’s no way you can answer every call that comes to you, but you can ensure that you never miss a message. With voicemail to email transcription, every voicemail you receive is automatically transcribed and sent to your email. So even if you can’t talk on the phone, you can at least stay in the know by glancing through your email when you get the chance, and then determine which ones require top priority and which ones can wait.
These are just some of the benefits a proper business phone system can bring to your law firm, but there are so many more features and opportunities that can help you. If you want to learn more, feel free to contact the experts over at Vaspian. We can answer any more questions you may have, as well as find the right business phone system for your specific law firm.
