Transcript:

Hello. The more we meet immigration and family law firms across the US who are doing 400,000, 500,000 and 600,000 in sales a year, we find that people are excited about scaling and growing the firm, but they don’t necessarily have the system, the processes or the people to get that done. And so we’ve brought in a special guest for you, Kassie Arnn. Thank you for coming. Well, thank you for having me. And she’s a specialist around telecommunications for law firms. And so we’re going to ask her questions about the easiest way to decide who to work with and how to decide what kind of system that you need in order to scale and grow. So, Kassie please introduce yourself to the viewers. Yes. So my name is Kassie Arnn. I am the executive vice president of Answer 360 telecommunications. We’re located in Fort Worth, Texas. And been in business for just over 17 years. You guys work with law firms all over the US? Like, what kind of law firms do you guys work with? Any shape and size law firm in the US. We also have firms that have satellite offices that maybe even outside the US, abroad. So, Kassie, here are some of the things that we’re finding when we’re meeting law firms for the first time. There are problem like missed calls, during business hours. And of course, we’re helping them get leads. And so potential new clients, or they’re calling in during business hours. They’re even calling after business hours. And to a certain degree, the law firm is paying for these leads. So they’re highly valuable. So missed calls during business hours, voicemail systems that aren’t working. Voicemail systems, that have call forwarding trees and stuff, that the calls aren’t actually forwarding. Therefore they’re losing leads. Many law firms operate 9 to 5 in their time zone. But the calls the prospects are national. So they’re calling at times— 9 to 5 there times. So, there are windows every single day that aren’t getting covered by phone systems. Is this the kind of situation that you can help with? Absolutely. Yeah. We see this all the time with a lot of the firms that we work with. They come to us for solutions. They’re only answering calls, like you said, from 9 to 5. When outside of those hours, they still have time they have to dedicate to the team that reside outside of their local time zone. So I think for any business that wants to scale, especially a law firm, they have to be able to support that growth and they have to be able to support the customer base outside their time zone. Yeah, we totally agree. And that’s why we want you here. Thank you so much for sharing the wisdom that you have picked up over a decade in this business. So let’s start off at the beginning. What should a founder, a law firm founder, know about a proper phone system so that they have something that will grow with them, as they potentially double or triple in size? Absolutely. It’s really important to note that a phone solution should not be cookie cutter. It should not be one size fits all. It’s really a consultative sale. So we want to understand your business. We want to understand your key processes. We want to understand your pain points and where you’re going to be in six months, in 12 months. So all of that is very important to understand. So that way, the phone system can scale with the business. What would a system like that look like? What kind of elements would be built into it that maybe a founder hasn’t thought about yet? Yeah. So you want to make sure that you have that your network. So a network is a very integral process in point of your voice network as well. So we want to understand that your network can support the growth and can support the number of users that you have on that network as well. And what does that network mean for a law firm founder that isn’t IT savy. Sure. So what that really looks like is we provide voice over IP phone service. That’s our icon of our core product. And along with voice over IP, it resides on your network, which means it plugs into your Ethernet port just like your computer does. So it runs on the internet. So it’s really important that your internet can support the number of users that you have. All of the computers, all the printers, as well as all the firms that are on the network as well. And if you double in size, you don’t have to start over again. You got it. Okay. So let’s talk about something that I know is challenging. Which is how you, determine your specs? Which we know are custom. Yes. And then how do you choose a solution provider that is the best fit for you? How would they go about that? Yeah. So it’s really important that you have a site visit. You don’t want to do anything remotely. You want to make sure that they come in, that they see your network and that they meet your team as well. Like in person? Yes. I think that’s very important as well. And I think it’s really nice to be able to work with the IT vendors that the firm has with them as well. Because we all have to work together. That way it avoids finger pointing. And really we all work cohesively to make sure that this is the best environment for the phone solution. So, what about training? Like, should they ask potential supplier about the training that they offer? Absolutely. I think it’s really important to have not only training on the phones themselves because they offer a wide array of feature and functionality, but also on the portal that they support. It’s really important too. As your business is scaling, you want to understand your reporting and your analytics and that that’s being offered by your solution provider as well. That will help the firm understand if their staff is doing what they need to be doing. Are they taking enough calls or do they have enough people answering calls? They may be overloaded in that capacity. So they may need to have someone brought in. Do they often ask if they can keep their existing hardware or do they have to rebuy? No, sometimes they can purchase new hardware. Sometimes they can use the existing as well. It depends on the handset specifically. But if that model is an IP based model and it is supported by the new provider, then most of the time you should be able to use that. The new provider should be able to assess that hardware and just tell them what their options are. Okay, so, we all know how important it is that the intake team at the law firm is efficient and effective, but it’s a very difficult for the law firm founder to manage that team and monitor how effective they are. But you have some tools for that? We do. We have a built in call center environment to the platform that allows the firm to actually manage their own call center environment within their own intake team. This has reporting and analytics so they can measure the key performances and the KPIs of their staff. That way they can make business decisions based on the reporting that they receive. So this really helps hold your team accountable and understand where you need to create more efficiencies. Or we are where you need to have more additional staff in place. So for the founder who wants to know, how the intake team is doing, like are they answering the calls? Are they answering them quickly? Not quickly. They’re going to voicemail. Are they doing a good job on the calls? Do you have built in systems that allow them to take a peek into that intake team and those individual performances? Yes. Not only do we have the statistics on every call and every agent that you have on the team, but we also offer call recordings so they can actually monitor those calls in real time. So what about if they already have phone numbers? Oh, yes. You can absolutely keep your phone number. I think that’s definitely something we want to make sure. You always want to keep your number, because from a branding perspective and marketing perspective, that’s the last thing you want to do, is to have to rebrand your organization or your firm. So it’s very, very important that you keep your business number. So let’s talk about that hardware again. Because the people that use those phones and those systems all the time, they get used to a certain kind of system. And so who’s there to guide them through the proper purchase? I think it’s very important, as the new provider coming on, that we understand the feature function of your current solution that you do like, as well as some of the things that you don’t like. That way we can help navigate to the point you in the right direction of the phone system. Perfect. What about myths or misconceptions that people might have about switching to voice over IP system? Because this may be the first time some law firm founders have even been talked to about voice over IP. This is all new to them. What myths, misconceptions? What are your thoughts? Yeah. So a lot of the times, the first concern that we typically hear about is well, if my network goes down then I lose my phones. That’s not necessarily true. We know—Answer360, we do have failovers in place that allow you to redirect calls automatically in the event of any type of local outage, meaning your internet goes down or your power outage. We can automatically route phones to call your cell phones as well. So what if they’ve already invested and like a vanity phone number? Is that something that they can keep? Absolutely. Yes. You can definitely keep your phone number. Many local area number, as well as your toll free vanity number. I mean, if they don’t have one, we can actually help you get one as well. So, what about local services versus international? Most of our clients operate in the US, but what kind of capabilities do you have local versus U.S versus international? How do you handle that? Yeah. So we use our desk phones, and our virtual service as well. We provide mobile apps that reside on your cell phone, as well as the, cell phone client that resides on the computer. So that way if your team, even if your team is remote temporarily or if you’re traveling, or if you do have a remote workforce that may be outside the US, it would be as if they were in the office down the hall from you. So you can still extension dial, transfer, and they can even accept calls from your clients, even outside the office. Okay, so I might have you mentioned that again, because a lot of the law firms are going with virtual assistants. Yes. So say that last thing about being able to have a team in multiple countries, but the phone systems work like it’s local. Yes. Is that right? It is absolutely. So. really what we do, we support both local staff as well as our remote staff. So if you have a team that whether it be multiple offices located in different states or different countries, or if you have a remote workforce that is answering calls for you that reside outside the US, they can still answer calls. They can take calls, place calls on your behalf and it still show that business number as if they were down the hall from your office. Yeah. That’s huge. That’s wonderful. What about receiving your voicemails and email notifications and things like— talk about that a little bit, because that’s maybe a feature or people don’t realize that they could take advantage of. Yeah. So even if you miss a call at your office, you shouldn’t be tied to your desk. We’re so mobile these days, so take advantage of your cell phone and your email. So all of your voicemails would come in to you via email with the WAV file attached, meaning you can be on your way to court, you could be on your way to a meeting, and you would still receive that voicemail. And you can still forward it and delegate to someone who can take care of that for you in your absence. And so, an intake team who is getting a call from a potential new client could be in meetings or, on another call, but see an email pop up to let them know that someone left a message. But not that they’re calling. We have both. So we have missed call notifications. Even if they don’t leave a voicemail and they just call, they get voicemail, they hang up. We still can tell you who called, what time and the caller ID. Yeah. That’s huge. Because I see that a lot. Unfortunately, they do miss calls. Correct. But the opportunity to call them back immediately afterwards would be wonderful. Exactly. So Kassie, I like to encourage people to have real people answer the phone if at all possible. Which is probably more possible during business hours, but I don’t know about after hours if they want that type of service. What can you do for them? Absolutely. We have live answer agents that can actually take those calls in a call center environment. That can take those calls off net hours. That way they can take the call. They can leave a message for the staff. They can also, transfer the call directly to someone’s cell phone in the event of an emergency. Okay. And so you can wrap all of this up into one program with one account manager, one invoice. Well, yes. Consolidated invoicing. So we can help you with the phone system, with the phone service, as well as your live answer, your call reporting and your internet service, all in one invoice. Okay, so over the last six months, I’ve met people that their entire law firm phone system, which is a part of their intake system, is just two cell phones. That’s it. Two cell phones. Also let people that because zoom has gotten so popular that they’ve actually gotten phone numbers from zoom. And the system hasn’t always worked well. And they’re missing leads. In both cases, missing leads. Here’s an opportunity to consult with one company that can do all of these things. And it’s all that you guys do for a living. Is this day in, day out? Yes. So there’s really no reason to miss any leads anymore because your phone system isn’t ready to scale. Yes. Let your phone system work for you. Yes. It’s there. So I definitely think you should take advantage of the opportunity and all of the feature function that we offer. So there shouldn’t be a missed calls. There should be always a route. A way to route calls, whether it be rollovers or to a live answering service. All of that is possible. So you can mitigate those missed calls. Kassie, I’m glad we could introduce you to the people that follow us and our videos and podcast. Would you share your contact information in case they wanted to talk to you guys specifically? Yes. Please feel free to reach out to us. You can reach us at answer360.com, or you can call us at 1-800-479-5562. Kassie Arnn from Answer360. Thank you for being here. Oh, thank you so much, Scott.