How phone calls are handled either works for or against you, and that goes for both ends—incoming and outgoing.
It is important enough that the ABA publication Law Practice devoted two pages to the subject in April 2007. For my money, the most important advice from author Dan Pinnington is to call your office and find out how calls are really being handled. As Dan says, you might be surprised by what you hear.
Now remember this is likely to be a prospect's first brush with how your firm works. From the caller’s perspective, if you can’t handle a call correctly, professionally and responsively, how can they expect you to handle their work differently?
As for established clients, most now feel they are better served if they can call your direct line. If you provide your clients with a direct number and then hide behind voice mail because you don’t want to be disturbed, you turn an intended good thing into an actual irritant for your client. Pinnington advises using a phone with a call display. He writes, “Many lawyers who had thought they would use call displays to avoid calls….find they actually take more calls because knowing the caller’s identity allows them to understand how much time will be involved before they pick up the phone.” He also says “…that four seconds between when the name pops up and you take the call magically seems to get you in the right frame of mind."
As for calls received by the receptionist, always give callers the option of leaving a traditional message or voice mail. He warns against asking callers for their identity prior to giving them the option of leaving a message or voice mail. “If you don’t take a call after a client has been asked who they are, you create the impression that you are avoiding their call.”
For those calls that do go to your voice mail, Pinnington provides the following advice:
1. Open with your name and title so the caller is sure they reached the correct mail box.
2. Update the message daily to include details of your schedule.
3. Indicate whether you’ll be checking voice mail or when you will be back in the office.
4. Always give the caller an option to transfer to a live person.
5. Encourage the caller to leave a detailed message.
6. Let the caller know when they can expect their call to be returned—after noon today, within 24 hours by the next day, etc.
Test your own voice mail system. Is the message clear? Are you speaking too fast? Are you limiting the caller to a 60-second message rather than getting the full details that would make your job easier?
As for the times you are the caller being asked to leave a voice message, Pinnington says the most important point in his entire two-page article is his advice that you “Clearly and slowly state your phone number. …Most people say their number at speeds approaching warp5, with the result is that it is unintelligible. Slow down and take a deep breath between each digit. Okay maybe not quite that slow, but you get the point.”
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