I wanted to tell you a quick story about something that happened to a client of mine not too long ago. We were able to increase their intake drastically. It more than doubled from the previous month, and the way that we were able to do it is we made a very simple change to their law firm, to the way their law firm runs itself, that most of you can probably make today. Here’s what we did:

The Power Of Having A Real Person Answering Your Phones

Have you ever called a business and you try to get customer service and the phone picks up says “Hi, you’ve reached blah blah blah – Press 1 for this, Press 2 for that, Press 3 for this, Press 4 for that.” Have you ever gotten one of those? Chances are a lot of people that are watching this also have that for their law firm.

Well, how happy are you when you get that message? Are you ever like “Oh man, I’m so happy I get to talk to this machine, and I didn’t get a real person on the phone! This machine just gets me! They just get me. They know what I need. They always answer my problems. They solve all my issues. I really feel like this machine cares about me.” Does that ever happen to you? No. It doesn’t.

What I told my client is “Get rid of the call-tree menu.” Have a love person answer the phone.

He didn’t believe me. I said “Just do it for a month. If you do it and it doesn’t work, it doesn’t drastically increase your intake – I will pay for your call-tree system for the next six months”. So, he said “Okay, deal. Do it.”

Next month – intake doubled – and the phone call volume didn’t really change, but what changed is that you’re answering the phone and getting them on with a real person. Think about when you call somebody. Do you want to talk to a machine or do you want to talk to a real person?

Should I Hire An Answering Service?

Now think about if it’s an emergency. If you’re a personal injury attorney, criminal defense attorney, or a family law attorney and you just got served divorce papers…do you want to talk to a machine or do you want to talk to a person now?

Nobody wants to talk to a machine! If you’re just a sole practitioner – find an answering service. Ask your colleagues who they use. It’s not expensive. It’s maybe $150-$200 a month, but I guarantee you will get more cases and by getting more cases it’s more than going to pay for this answering service.

Get rid of the phone tree, get rid of the messages, have a real person answer your phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and I promise you you’ll thank me.