Statistics are powerful. Our own opinions and ideas are certainly important, but in the world of customer service, it’s essential to know what real customers want, think, and need through statistics and trustworthy research. Customers’ needs and wants change over time, so statistics that aren’t recent won’t give you the snapshot you need to make growth-geared decisions. It can be

Operating a business online is more common than ever before, with more than 70% of businesses in the United States being started from home. An online business has a lot of advantages over a brick-and-mortar business, the first and foremost being that it’s a lot less expensive to open and run. The business that operates entirely online doesn’t usually require

Your current law firm intake process may serve you well enough as is, but if you want to grow your firm and work with more clients, a few small changes to that process can go a long way. The most efficient intake processes anticipate clients’ needs to simplify and shorten the process. If it’s easy for people to find you

Voicemail isn’t the communication catch-all it once was. People are abandoning their voicemail inboxes in their personal lives, with some admitting they haven’t checked their voicemail in a year or more and simply delete the notifications as they come in. When those voicemails are mostly non-urgent calls from friends, telemarketers, and maybe parents, ignoring voicemail entirely becomes easy. In business,

When you first start a business or firm, you handle the calls (which, thankfully, are few in the beginning). Once your company starts growing and taking off, the call volume increases and it becomes obvious that you’ll need someone to take over your call answering duties. In this case, you might consider hiring a virtual receptionist or an in-house receptionist.

When someone calls your business, do you know what they really expect or want in a receptionist? Do they expect intense friendliness or a cool, professional tone? It can be difficult to say due to caller preferences, but there are a few points that most callers agree on. What do callers want in a receptionist and does yours make the

Attorneys are intensely busy throughout the workweek. They need to be in court often and have to remain flexible for their clients. The law office can offer some needed administrative support, but often, talented paralegals get stuck answering the phones instead of doing legal research. If you want to really succeed as an attorney and make use of your paralegal’s

What is the most expensive small business employee that owners typically hire? Before you answer, think about the variety of factors at play in determining the true cost of an employee. How much is their salary? How much does it cost to provide the employee with benefits? What is the nature of the work the employee does? Is their work

Dr. Dori Gatter, a Conversational client, is using a virtual receptionist to turn prospects into clients. She was recently featured on the Selling the Couch podcast for practitioners to discuss ways to turn callers and prospects into clients. Dr. Gatter is a Licensed Professional Counselor with her own private practice and group practice in West Hartford, Connecticut. Find more information

If we told you that how you answer the phone can make or break your business, would you think it’s melodramatic? The fact is, the way you greet callers on the phone – or the way you don’t greet them – can undermine or support your success. It’s entirely up to you. If you’re finding that more and more often,