Blog: Virtual Receptionist

Alison Pacuska, president of Pacuska Professional Services, a top-tier boutique firm offering paralegal and legal assistant services, explains how to determine if a virtual paralegal is right for your law firm. Learn how to make the most of a virtual paralegal, and how a service like hers can complement the services of a virtual receptionist.

Minneapolis-based attorney and solopreneur Jess Birken of Birken Law Office and Hack Your Practice offers a handful of ways fellow solo lawyers can lighten their load by tapping flexible, affordable outsourced services.

AppToto is an online calendaring tool that makes your existing calendar (Google, Outlook, Office365, Salesforce, Clio, etc.) available online. This makes it easy to put your calendar on your website and in your email for easy booking with leads and clients. It also now means you can share your calendar with Smith.ai receptionists so we can book appointments (and follow-up on upcoming appointments) on your behalf. The result is less calendaring work for you and your team (you have more important things to do), and more qualified leads on your calendar.

Salesforce is a popular CRM that allows businesses to manage their sales, marketing, and customer support efforts in the cloud. With Smith.ai's new Salesforce integration, you can instantly see new and updated contact information for callers (leads), as well as post-call summary notes, in your Salesforce account after every receptionist call.

Clio Grow is the newest addition to Clio, a popular choice for legal practice management software. With Clio Grow you can capture, qualify, and convert new potential clients for your law practice. With this integration, Smith.ai receptionists can add new leads and post-call summary notes to your Clio Grow Inbox instantly after every receptionist call.

Lead Docket is lead-tracking and intake software for law firms. With this integration, Smith.ai receptionists can add and update records in Lead Docket, so that attorneys can easily track and follow-up with all potential clients.

Smith.ai receptionists have made outbound calls for our clients from the start, but until recently, when we made those calls, your Smith.ai number appeared on caller ID. Now, you can opt to have your main business number appear on caller ID when we make outbound calls on your behalf. Learn more about this new feature from Smith.ai.

Are you missing calls from potential clients? Are you slow to adopt new technologies, like online payments? You've got company. Responsiveness remains one of the biggest challenges for attorneys. It also presents the greatest opportunity for unlocking more revenue, client satisfaction, and productivity. We took data from the just-released 2018 Clio Legal Trends Report and pinpointed actionable recommendations. Learn four ways to buck the trend, be more responsive, and chart a path for your law firm's success.

Lawmatics is a brand new marketing automation, contact management (CRM), and intake platform, built by lawyers and for lawyers. When you connect your Smith.ai and Lawmatics accounts, you'll see new contacts added and existing contacts updated after each call. All call notes will be logged in their records, too. Plus, Smith.ai receptionists can complete intake forms on behalf of new prospective clients. Learn more about this integration and how to put it to work at your law practice.

The founder of Retirement Matters, Inc., Dave Grant, CFP®, shares his finely tuned process for generating leads. Thanks in part to this setup, 95% of his initial consultation calls are with qualified potential clients. 95%! Learn how to replicate his success.

ClientSherpa is client-friendly legal intake software for attorneys. Smith.ai now integrates with ClientSherpa, which means our receptionists can complete intake over the phone on behalf of new clients using your ClientSherpa forms. We can also schedule consultation appointments for you and other attorneys at your firm, because ClientSherpa integrates directly to your calendar. If you already thought intake was easy with ClientSherpa, just wait until it's even more streamlined with our receptionists.

WhenWorks is an inexpensive and popular iOS- and web-based scheduling tool that eliminates the hassle of scheduling meetings by allowing customers and coworkers to book time with you online when you’re available, and only during the times you’ve approved. Now, Smith.ai integrates with WhenWorks so our receptionists can book time on your calendar based on your availability (with new leads and existing clients, for example).

Tune in to hear Maddy Martin, Smith.ai's head of marketing and partnerships, discuss ways to improve your responsiveness to potential clients interested in working with your law firm.

Smith.ai has long been known for its integrations with contact management (CMS/CRM), business management, marketing, ticketing, calendaring, and billing software. We prioritize integrations because they drive efficiency. When your records, calendar, support tickets, invoices, and intake forms are synced with Smith.ai, you can spend less time on data entry and post-call follow-up work, which leaves you free to focus your valuable time on revenue-generating work. Now, you can see every integration partner on one handy page. It's never been easier to take full advantage of Smith.ai's integrations. Learn more about currently available integrations and how integrations work at Smith.ai.

Wealthbox is a modern, web-based CRM for financial planners and wealth advisors. Smith.ai now integrates with Wealthbox so each call handled by a Smith.ai receptionist is documented in your Wealthbox account immediately after the call. New contacts are automatically created, and each call summary is logged as a new note for a contact (new or existing).

Pipedrive is a popular sales management tool (CRM) for small businesses focused on activity-based selling. Smith.ai now integrates with Pipedrive so each call handled by a Smith.ai receptionist is logged in your account immediately after the call. Both a contact and an activity record are added, making it easy to identify progress and next steps for each deal.

Join us Tuesday, August 21, at 12:00 p.m. EST for a free webinar about online scheduling best practices. We'll focus on scenarios specific to legal and finance professionals, but any service-oriented business owner will benefit from these tips!

Smith.ai has partnered with CPACharge to help CPAs run more profitable financial planning firms by helping them collect more of their earnings.

We're pleased to announce a new service from Smith.ai, called Operator. With this service, Smith.ai receptionists will convene your conference calls with multiple participants. We'll bring all participants on the line, and then we'll call you to join them. Learn more about this service and how to get started.

Would you prefer to get a call transfer request through a text message instead of a phone call? Smith.ai's receptionists can now alert you via SMS when you receive a call that meets your transfer criteria. Simply reply "Y" to accept or "N" to reject the transfer. Learn how to enable this new feature.