Most companies don’t earn income while they are answering phones. This is even truer for attorneys who bill by the hour. If attorneys in your office are getting stuck answering overflow phones calls, you need to hire Central Comm. right now.
It is important to stifle the knee jerk reaction to answer every call that comes in. Let me be clear, we know that it is important that you talk to your clients and answer their concerns, that is not what I am talking about here.Each of us, no matter what business we are in get the following types of calls:
- Are you accepting new clients?
- What type of law do you practice?
- How do I get to your office?
- Who handles your marketing and advertising?
- Appointment Scheduling
Those are just a few of the time waster type calls which could be professionally and efficiently handled by Central Communications.
There is an article in the Americanbar.org website which lists several other things which attorneys can do to maximize billable hours, and stop losing those precious hours to tasks better handled by someone else;
“Capturing All Billable Time
This is the never-ending nag about consistently writing down your time. The statistics are overwhelming: You can lose 20 percent of your billable time if you don’t write it down immediately upon completing the work. So track it constantly through the day!
- Get client/matter numbers at inception.When you’re handed a file or you engage in a case-related discussion with another lawyer, ask for the client/matter number up front. This will do two things: (1) make it clear that you’re going to bill the time you work and (2) eliminate the need for you to chase down the number later, which, of course, wastes billable time!
- Copy yourself or your assistant on all e-mails.I’ll say it again: Here’s your track record of what work you’ve done in e-mail. If necessary, you can print out the messages—including client/matter number and time spent—and have them transferred to the firm’s billing program. You did the work, so make sure that it’s captured.
- Complete your daily timesheets by day’s end.The best practice is to keep a running log of time (software-based or otherwise) of everything you do as you do it. If you’re a scrap-of-paper person, then you need to aggregate and compile the list for your billing program before leaving the office that day. Even if your memory rivals that of the elephant, you will miss things if you don’t do this every single day. Recall our earlier math—one missed 10th of an hour each day translates to 23 lost hours a year.
Implementing some or all of these suggestions will definitely increase your productivity. Better productivity will improve your compensation and sense of accomplishment. In turn, your increased accomplishment will produce greater career satisfaction. And the extra cash you gain in the process won’t hurt either.”
Let Central Communications take over the bothersome, time consuming calls that are not productive for you.
Central Comm
