A client’s asked you to move a meeting three times today, you already know you’ll be working through lunch (and probably dinner) and you just received an angry voicemail because you missed a call while stuck in a last-minute meeting. Typical day at the office.
Okay, maybe this isn’t every day at the office, but we know law firms are busy, and the last thing attorneys need on their plate is a phone system that seems to work against them. Here’s how law offices can reduce stress with a phone system that’s mobile, modern and flexible.
- Manage Call Flow with Advanced Features
Phones ringing off the hook is a great sign of a busy office, but a constantly ringing phone is the recipe for distraction – especially when lawyers have to field all those calls themselves. How can law offices better manage incoming calls without shelling out on a full-time receptionist?
With a business VoIP provider, offices can use an IVR and auto-attendant to automatically answer calls and direct them to the correct recipient. This way, lawyers are only interrupted with critical calls; offices can field other calls to the appropriate department.
With calls coming in as frequently as they do at most firms, missed calls seem inevitable.
However, VoIP’s call handling capabilities can just about eliminate missed calls by automatically re-routing them when a line is busy. With VoIP, lawyers can also forward calls to another recipient while in a meeting or unavailable.
Further, if a lawyer does miss a call, they can receive a notification and voicemail transcription by email, both ensuring they address the message faster and helping consolidate client and partner interactions within one central inbox.
- Keep Work and Personal Calls Straight with Mobile VoIP SIP
With a VoIP app, attorneys can take calls on their cell phone using their work number. This not only increases availability, but also helps streamline calls. Juggling a work phone and a cell phone can get tricky and giving out a personal cell number to new clients might seem unprofessional to those unfamiliar with the business. VoIP apps consolidate calls onto one phone (without revealing your personal number) and separate calls between work and personal.
Aside from reducing the stress of monitoring several devices, this also helps attorneys more easily manage work calls. Most VoIP services even offer call recording and tracking so attorneys can quickly review calls for billing purposes.
VoIP apps also enable texting to help attorneys keep in touch with clients and partners using quick messages or even help one work with younger audiences who would rather text than talk.
- Easily Adapt to New Technology
Similar to medical and insurance fields, the law industry is particularly resistant to technology disruption, and tends to be slow on digitization. However, several firms are adopting new tools, going paperless and modernizing their offices – at the traditional office’s expense.
Fortunately, VoIP solutions make it easier for change-resistant industries to ease themselves into the convenience and dependability of modern tech. Electronic faxing, for example, is a more efficient way to send and receive documents securely than resorting to the hunk-of-junk fax machine that screams 1990s. And with the average lawyer creating or receiving over 70 documents a day, it’s a huge paper saver.
VoIP’s texting capabilities are also a great way for law offices to show clients and partners they’re modernizing. Not only can they send and receive messages from clients, but they can share photos as well; lawyers and clients can exchange pictures of graphs, evidence or documents to supplement a text-based conversation.
VoIP can also integrate with CRMs to make calls more personable, allow offices to take calls even when all lines are full and enable clients to request call-backs if a recipient is unavailable. Small features like these add up to create a more pleasant experience for clients that older, landline-based operations can’t match.
- Evolve with Ease
On-boarding a new attorney? Bringing in a few summer assistants? VoIP’s inherent flexibility makes it easier than ever to on- and off-board employees. Without the constraints of physical lines or a bundled line subscription structure, VoIP SIP providers can add or remove new users to and from a plan quickly and easily. And with call volume tracking, firms can get insights into call efficiency to help determine when to hire new staff.
In addition, employees using VoIP solutions can work from home, choose flexible hours and work while on the go. This makes it easier for law offices to make new hires; it widens their applicant pool by eliminating hour and location restrictions. And VoIP’s independence from a physical location not only enables firms to tap into more talent, but it also allows them to expand to new locations and keep local numbers in multiple cities.
Firms that anticipate expansion or other changes can reduce the logistics headaches by adopting a phone solution that evolves with them.
Save Money on a Better Solution
To many businesses’ surprise, VoIP is often cheaper than landline service. Despite its more advanced and modern features, VoIP is internet-based, so providers can deliver the service at a much lower cost than a legacy system built on a physical landline infrastructure.
To learn some of the other benefits to adopting VoIP, download our infographic on the top 10 advantages to 4Voice’s business VoIP service.
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