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Rethink Call Handling and Elevate Your Client Intake System
June 25, 2020
Today's TechnoLawyer Buyer's Guide Report covers a call, intake, and retainer service for law firms that offers tight integration with your existing software and collaboration with your intake team.
Rethink Call Handling and Elevate Your Client Intake System to New Heights
You know better than anyone that not all lawyers are equally talented. But when a consumer needs a lawyer, their emotion and sense of urgency often leads them to respond to speed and not necessarily talent. That's why it's not only important to answer calls 24/7 but to sign up prospective clients that meet your firm's criteria on the initial call. For most law firms, this capability requires outside assistance.
Alert Communications in One Sentence
Alert Communications is a call, intake, and retainer service for law firms that offers tight integration with your existing software and collaboration with your intake team.
The Killer Feature
Most law firm call services are just law firm call services. They answer phone calls on your behalf and take a message. By contrast, Alert can become an integral part of your intake team. The extent of the collaboration is up to you.
For example, Alert can build a custom integration with your firm's practice management or CRM software for direct entry of new leads. You name the product and chances are Alert can work with it — from industry giants like Clio Grow to niche products like Law Ruler and Lead Docket. "Our programmers make integrations for law firms as seamless and easy as possible," says Alert President Kim Starr. "We work hard so they don't have to."
Alert can even sign up new clients that meet the criteria you specify. Some firms defer to Alert for creating these criteria given Alert's many years of experience.
To maximize conversion of quality prospects, Alert created a proprietary technology called Smart Lead Tracking. If a call drops or otherwise ends without a resolution, Alert can immediately call the person back. Also, Alert recognizes repeat callers and pulls up the information collected on prior calls. This enables any Alert representative to continue a prior conversation rather than start all over again and waste the caller's time.
"Our firm recently started working with Alert Communications," says George Huffman, a paralegal at personal injury firm Recovery Law Center. "We have never used an outside answering service before so we were unsure what to expect. From the onboarding process to the integration of our phone systems, Alert's service and attention to detail have been excellent. The follow-up and monitoring of our account by our account manager is outstanding. Alert has become an essential extension of our office."
Alert Communications goes beyond call answering with services such as integrating with your practice management system and signing up new clients for your firm.
Other Notable Features
Alert answers calls in three rings or less for all law firm customers, and offers a long list of additional services from which you can choose. These include Spanish-speaking representatives, calendar scheduling, routing calls from clients or prospects ("warm transfers"), phone trees (e.g., "press 1 if you're a client"), customized reports, and overflow capacity during an emergency in your region.
Not all prospects use the phone so Alert can also reach out to prospects who contact your firm via your website, email, or text message.
Alert offers specialized services for mass tort firms, which experience heavy volumes of calls from TV, radio, and online advertising. Alert can handle the flood of calls 24/7 and eliminate those who don't meet the requirements for inclusion in the class.
What Else Should You Know?
Thanks to Alert's structured onboarding process, your firm can get up and running in a week to a month depending on the services you choose. Alert tests the integrations it builds and uses test calls to train its representatives vis-a-vis your firm's requirements.
Neil J. Squillante is the founder and publisher of TechnoLawyer, an award-winning network of free email newsletters for lawyers and law office administrators. Many consider TechnoLawyer newsletters the only ones they need. A Fastcase 50 award winner, Neil has a long track record of inventing successful advertising and publishing technologies and related best practices. Previously, Neil practiced commercial litigation at Am Law 100 firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. He received his J.D. from UCLA School of Law and his B.A. from Duke University. At UCLA, Neil served as a Managing Editor of UCLA Law Review.
