Create a Great First Impression, with Luis Bedoya from Berkshire Receptionists (Sponsored)

Announcer:

Welcome to The Lawyerist Podcast, a series of discussions with entrepreneurs and innovators about building a successful law practice in today’s challenging and constantly changing legal market. Lawyerist supports attorneys, building client-centered, and future-oriented small law firms through community, content, and coaching both online and through the Lawyerist Lab. And now from the team that brought you The Small Firm Roadmap and your podcast hosts

Zack Glaser (00:35):

Hey y’all I’m Zack Glaser, the legal tech advisor here at Lawyerist. And this is episode 403 of the Lawyerist Podcast. Today we’re diving into another sponsored podcast episode. In these we’re joined by a legal voice or company, and we discuss newest features, happenings and trends in the legal world. Again, we’re excited to offer these episodes to our audience, and we hope you enjoy them. Today I’m joined by Louis Bedoya of Berkshire Receptionists. We’ll be talking about how outsourcing aspects of your firm can help you navigate the current business climate, and even help you build trust with your clients.

Luis Bedoya (01:08):

Hi, I’m Luis Bedoya. I’m COO of Berkshire Receptionists. We’re a nationwide provider of 24/7 live virtual receptionists. I’m a 26 year team member and family member of Berkshire Receptionists and our family of businesses. We proudly support well over 400 clients across many industries, many in the legal community, providing concierge-level first impressions that help businesses grow through our virtual receptionist services. Very much catered to the needs of each individual client, you know, services that have been delivered now for over 80 years with team members that, you know, have beaten me in loyalty by at least 10 to 20 years as well. So you know, from industry skilled receptionists that you know, that we’re all greeting callers, performing lead intakes, booking appointments, transferring calls, we’re merging out cutting edge technology to really create some really cool experiences for our clients and bring, bring value at times when, when it’s needed the most. You know, we like to say we’re there when you need us

Zack Glaser (02:05):

Fantastic, Luis. I appreciate you being here with me and talking about something. I think that a lot of virtual receptionists and those types of firms are really on the forefront of, and have a great eye into, because they’re dealing with that initial area of other people’s businesses and of their own businesses. So I’m excited to talk about the impact of kind of new business structures and new business relationships that we have due to COVID due to moving remote, due to the great resignation, all of these things that have kind of piled on us as business owners that say you have to look at these things differently now. And so I, I’m excited to talk to you about those issues, how you’ve approached them and how people can approach ’em. And one of them, I think that comes off right off the bat for virtual receptionists specifically is staffing in this new environment, talking about hiring, talking about retaining. So what are you seeing in that area?

Luis Bedoya (03:08):

Well, I’ll tell you what I’m seeing. I’m seeing a lot of stress and, you know, it’s the stress that’s impacting the, you know, many of the attorneys that we work with. I mean, the staffing shortages that they’re facing the employee turnover, dealing with the pandemic itself, the impact it’s had on the health of their team members, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, it’s leaving them juggling, you know, a variety of different responsibilities. I mean, also quite honestly, all service based businesses. We are people-centric people powered business, and we were not left to the side with, without facing these challenges as well. And we’ve been able to leverage a lot of innovation, a lot of creativity, a lot of dynamics to be able to fuel our own business throughout this time as well, to then turn around and be able to help, you know, the team members and the clients that are going through the, the high stress levels right now, because of these challenges, I mean, many are faced with, you know, whether they be mandates in certain, you know, locations that in certain geographic areas that forced ’em to shut down for longer periods of time, others, and quite honestly all have been, you know, battling the great resignations, the race for talent and the increasing cost in inflation, that’s all creating stress.

Luis Bedoya (04:13):

It has an impact on time, right? , You know, single practice attorneys, small firms are left, wearing many hats. These folks are, are now handling inbound calls and engagement following up with their own clients, dealing with these staffing shortages, these 10 to 12 hour days of theirs that they were already running are now 14 and 16 hour days. Whereas where does that leave them now with respect to the time and they get to invest with family. It’s creating this sort of domino effect in the wrong directions. We, as a business, you know, like I mentioned earlier, we’re able to tackle these head on, and now we’re using the solutions that we’ve been able to create by leveraging the fact that we’ve had some great loyalty from our team members and bring on new talent as well, to now be able to provide solutions to folks that are out there facing these stresses and challenges, the solo firms, the smaller firms, and even the larger firms that are tackling the same challenge.

Luis Bedoya (05:02):

If you know, you got, you had X amount of receptionists or team members working on certain team functions, that’s now cut in half. What does that do from a training perspective of new team members from a retention perspective of those that, that come aboard and quite honestly, the client experience as a result of that, CBS news ran a poll very recently. It said 40% of law firms are taking over three days on average to respond to voicemails emails, web submissions, that’s got a residual effect, a tremendous residual effect on client expectations and overall reputation. You know, the impact of not being responsive means more time spent on the business and the firm less with family, it’s that negative sort of domino in the wrong direction that, you know, we’ve been noticing as high trends in, in the legal communities, as well as in many others. . So we’re doing our part to be able to provide solutions, to help people through those, you know, tough times.

Zack Glaser (05:53):

Well, let’s talk about some of those, those solutions. And I think specifically hiring jumps out to me, and as you talked about bringing somebody in training them, and because we’re, we’re in this virtual receptionist area, but I think this can go to, to most anything. We’re gonna talk about, you know, virtual receptionist, specifically training a receptionist, and then potentially you, you’re not able to retain them training multiple receptionists. That takes a good deal of time. But if we’re connecting with a company that is virtual receptionist, something like Berkshire, then we’re really training a company instead of training a specific receptionist. Yes, you will. It’s my understanding with, with you guys specifically, you will get the same receptionist. They will be trained for your company, but the lawyers’ time, the firm’s time is spent once, correct on training a company to do this. So what, what are your challenges? What are your views and how do you see the issue with training people and, and potentially even training them, having to train them multiple times?

Luis Bedoya (06:58):

Well, let’s talk about that challenge being faced by the firm, right? , As they’re doing that, you’re absolutely right. It’s bringing on the talent, you know, making sure that made the right selection, which is, you know, half the challenge right off the bat that you bring in the right talent to fill in that position. Then you go through the motion of training and adoption and the period of time that that’s gonna take. And then, you know, at the tail end of it is, you know, where you’re able to retain the resource through all of that time business continues to run, right? So even as you invest into your own team and, and growing your own firm and your own team members, your business continues to operate, your firm continues to operate and calls are coming in, emails are coming in, they’re still engagement that needs to take place.

Luis Bedoya (07:40):

So while you’re facing all of that, that’s where a company like ours, you’re absolutely right. It’s sort of a train the trainer mentality, right? You work with us in a very sort of concierge level, hands on approach through our business development teams, through our client, you know, support teams to build and cater that experience that will be created to fit the need and solve the needs of the, of that particular firm. Beyond that the team members that we have have already been trained and not just trained, but also working directly with folks in the legal community, providing services to other folks in the legal world.

Zack Glaser (08:16):

Right. And if someone is looking to outsource some of their intake, some of their receptionists, some of their, you know, that first level, that first face, what are the things that you would suggest that they look for in finding a partner that can do that, that is able to retain their own staff, frankly?

Luis Bedoya (08:34):

Well, let’s let me twist that just a bit and talk about those, you know, those impacts that we were talking about and, and how that will tie into working with a company like ours and the why, right. Why would you need to do that? Well, let’s talk about the changes in sort of these client experiences and client expectations and the impact that that has on a firm’s reputation. Look, we’re a service based business as well. So we have a reputation uphold. We have to be able to deliver quality services. Otherwise our clients, you know, will have their, you know, say in the world, on us as well. Well, the same goes for these firms. So it’s really about the importance of a first impression. It’s the number one attribute, I believe with a bullet that makes a lawyer hireable, according to today’s consumer, it’s gonna be probably the positive reviews and recommendations from other peers and consumers.

Luis Bedoya (09:19):

Think about the impact of a good or bad experience. You know, 20, 30 years ago, we were talking about one person’s opinion impacting or influence in six others as they share that information in today’s world, one person’s opinion shared on a Google review can influence millions , you know, depending on where or how, how those folks are reaching that, you know, we, for example, as a business created our own internal challenges within our own teams to sort of leverage the intangible moments, the thank you moments. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> those really great experiences that we’re providing at times to become tangible experiences and allow those to become moments that our own clients and our own, you know, team members would like to share with the world. So we encourage and really highlight those moments so that we can then in turn, you know, provide that excellent service to our clients.

Luis Bedoya (10:05):

It’s the same stressors that impacted life work balance became very evident in that area, right there, where the shortages in the staff let the poor experience and in turn negative reviews and loss of business . So that kind of explains the why and why someone like Berkshire Receptionists. Well, you know, as I just mentioned, we, you know, being people-centric first and client-centric first it’s about creating those, you know, amazing experiences. It’s about catering those experiences around those needs. And it’s about, you know, highlighting those moments that, you know, not only become great moments for us, but if I and our team are representing the law firms to the caller, that’s sort of oblivious to them, they don’t believe they’re talking to Berkshire Receptionists. They believe they’re talking to Smith’s law firm. Hence that experience only highlights the reputation for S Smith’s law firm.

Luis Bedoya (10:53):

So it’s something we take very, you know, very much at heart. We’re very passionate about, even when it comes to measuring, like I mentioned our own reputation and our own, you know, highlighting those intangible moments. I like to call it turning intangibles into tangibles around here and how we can take that and leverage that for our clients as well. And that’s an important sort of decision maker, as you’re starting to think like, Hey, why even, you know, consider a virtual receptionist service. Well, number one, it’s the stress on my staff. We just talked about that, right? The, your augmenting staff at a quick space, what is the impact on your existing staff as well on the existing team that’s left over trying to juggle a million different things, you know, while they’re doing that, who’s handling these experiences for the business. You know, how do we make sure that we’re being responsive to the client needs that we’re being responsive to potential new clients?

Luis Bedoya (11:40):

What’s the impact of missing one phone call, right? One email engagement to some firms, you know, it could be a missed opportunity. It could be in the thousands or, or significantly more in cost to them. So you sort of justify an ROI by just looking at the challenge that you’re trying to solve and seeing how you can adopt some of these new services and features and outsource, you know, they, you gotta get through that wall as well. Some folks, you know, have sort of the fear of outsourcing a business process because they feel they’ll lose quality. Well, we invest a lot into, you know, nurturing that experience from the beginning and holding our clients hands through that, you know, onboard period in the adoption period. So they can see and feel the value so they can in turn, tie that back to solving, you know, these challenges that they’re facing and then focus back on running their practice.

Zack Glaser (12:33):

What I get out of that is kind of twofold. And I, I agree with you on, on that, but I do think some companies are looking for, I just need somebody to answer the phone. I don’t think that’s a lot of lawyers. And I think here, the question is, do you want a high level of experience for your clients? Is this company, is this outsourced company going to provide the same level experience for my clients that I would provide as an attorney? And then the other side, the flip side, I think that you alluded to is the experience for your own company. Is this outsourced company going to integrate into my company, into my firm? Are they going to use technology that is assisting me as opposed to creating another silo of information, creating another barrier for me to move forward? I think that’s another thing to look at beyond just the, what quality of kind of workmanship am I getting out of this company?

Zack Glaser (13:35):

What’s the quality to me? What am I getting? And is it benefiting? Because I think as again, you alluded to client expectations are different now. Yeah. Because of what we have going on in the world, clients don’t necessarily expect you again, specifically with receptionist to have a receptionist sitting outside your office, frankly, they don’t even expect you necessarily to have an office brick and mortar office anymore. So how can we leverage those, what we initially kind of thought of as issues and leverage them and make them into opportunities. And that’s with bringing more technology potentially, and from a, a virtual receptionist, what, what are you seeing from that area specifically with the law firms and kind of integrating the virtual receptionist into that firm?

Luis Bedoya (14:22):

It’s great topic to discuss, cuz I think there were trends already heading towards technology pre COVID that I think were only fast tracked significantly through the pandemic and the experiences of the pandemic. And that’s really in, in what the legal community is doing is with respect to investing in technology in their firms and how, you know, even investing in, in partnerships like working with the Berkshire receptionist ties back to that technology. So I, I like to consider that it’s like the, the adoption of automation, mm-hmm, <affirmative> the enhancement of automation. It enhances from my perspective, the human experience, it creates efficiencies. It’s not really about replacing the human as much as it is, making them more efficient, making the whole process more effective. There are trend reports that are showing out there that 85% of firms right now are using some form of software to manage their firm period.

Luis Bedoya (15:13):

Some form of software. That’s pushing that 95% of those firms plan to continue to do so and growing firms are adopting technology at near a hundred percent rate. And that’s the CRMs, the practice management software solutions. And you’re absolutely right. How does that tie into everything that ties back to not just the efficiency that it’s creating within the firm, but it’s the experience for their customers. It’s leveraging other technologies that can also integrate with some of those tools. It’s keeping the life in business, simple on the firm staff and its clients online and virtualized payment solutions, marketing automation, and marketing track. And these things are all holistically over the past four years, but really over the past two taken a fast track in the legal community. Well, how does that then, you know, sort of impact you’re right. The integration with what was probably, I think one of the original integrations and we all called it, you know, in the old days call forwarding or any of the such, which is to take your calls and send them over to the virtual receptionist or to right to the answering services that was integration one, that’s being able to integrate one business with another, make it happen.

Luis Bedoya (16:17):

Well, now that getting the calls and the emails and the engagements into the hands of the virtual receptionist is how do you make sure that there’s a tie in back, that your team is not then left performing data entry and that’s by it basically leveraging those integrations through our technology. You know, not only are we gonna do everything to help with staff augmentation combating the labor shortages and avoiding drop calls and missed opportunities, but we’re also gonna be providing lead intake and scoring and routing and take all of that. You know, all those process, all that information. And we’re collecting and through an efficient, very much integration with a lot of the practice management, softwares and CRMs that are used by the legal community, get it right into their hands. So now it really empowers their staff who’s again, going through everything we just discussed a short while ago, the augmenting of their own internal teams and the efficiencies they’re looking for.

Luis Bedoya (17:06):

It saves ’em time. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> goes back to that time element, which is sort of that invaluable resources. You can’t really put a, a price on it’s peace of mind. It helps the small firms to large firms be more effective and efficient by cutting back time and being able to then focus on running their business in the tools and systems that their teams are used to running. Our tech is very much, you know, highly integrated with a lot of the tech systems that are used to CRMs in the practice management solutions that are used by, you know, the folks in the legal community. And they see that as you know, what to invest in to really track back an ROI. What are they investing in beyond the technology in the virtual receptionists or virtual services is, Hey, what is it that they’re probably not gonna be putting money into?

Luis Bedoya (17:52):

And you’re absolutely right. If they’re customer base, the customers of the legal community are saying their clients are saying to them, Hey, four or five years ago, we preferred at a, you know, four to one, five to one rate to actually meet face to face with an attorney and now that’s flipped upside down. You know, the legal community’s understanding that why continue to invest at a high rate in brick and mortar in offices that are at this point half empty, where are those dollars best spent? And they are within, you know, high numbers, especially growing firms, putting that investment directly into the technology, directly into the integrations and directly into all of these systems that make their clients’ lives a lot smoother that makes their doing business with them a lot cleaner that makes their staff more efficient. And that makes integrations with services like ours or solutions like ours, a heck of a lot more effective and it adds more, you know, umph to that relationship towards the end, right there. We talked about that value prop and solving the challenges. Well, how do we enhance them? We enhance ’em by making it easy to continue to do business as well.

Zack Glaser (18:56):

Right. I like to talk about where the, you know, kinda the rubber meets the road a lot of times, and we talk about the automation and the efficiency. Yeah. And I want to dig into that a little bit more specifically, because we say, you know, integration with the CRM integration with law practice management system, and that is getting data from your virtual receptionist from your third party into your own hands. And so that makes things faster for you. Obviously it’s more efficient because you don’t have that double entry. And then you said, you know, kind of that initial integration of simply call forwarding yeah. Routing your calls to the virtual receptionist office to this third party. And so we’re getting data to the third party and then we’re getting data back from the third party. And some of the other ways that we do this automation, because I, I like to bring that word down into the real world, because a lot of times we think of automation in the first thing that pops into our heads are rub Goldberg machines.

Zack Glaser (19:52):

You know, something from honey. I shrunk the kids where we’ve, we’ve made the scrambled eggs and the toast at the same time, by rolling a bowling ball down a, a shoot, and then a ping pong ball, you know, bounces off. And, and, you know, when we think of automation, we think of that, or the Benny Hill soundtrack comes into the back of my mind. But really what we’re talking about is live transfer. Yeah. Appointment scheduling. Yes. Getting the data from one place to another. This is automation that doesn’t necessarily happen just with a computer it’s broadening these efficiencies. Yes. And having the integrations into that practice management technology or into the CRM, like you said, we’re, we’re enhancing the benefits that we’ve gotten from what initially seemed like detriments, which is that we are a more remote world now or remote ready world. Now, our clients are expecting to, to get appointments scheduled on their first call with us, or at least pretty quickly there. And so when you think of the outsourcing your virtual receptionist, and I think we’ve hit on this a little bit. What is the key there, when you think of the guts of outsourcing your virtual receptionist, kind of like what image comes into your mind? What, what do we think that really does for the law firm, for the attorney? Other than, I mean, like we’ve talked about, a lot of it so far, but kind of, if we boil it down,

Luis Bedoya (21:17):

We gotta start with trust. I think law firms certainly highly value their reputation, their client experience, handholding elements. And you have to be able to trust any partner that you’re now given a responsibility. It’s a tremendous responsibility just to represent your brand . So all these things that we talked about as far as the, what per se, right? Appointment schedule. Yes. It, it creates simplicity in, it creates a better flow of business between your staff and your systems. And the true integration with a virtual receptionist is right by creating these simplicities in the unity and all of these systems in the delivery of the services you’re looking for. But at the end of the day, it’s trust, how do you find a partner? You can trust, you know, how do you determine that this virtual receptionist company versus this one’s the right fit?

Luis Bedoya (22:09):

And I think that’s, those are great question. Those are great things to dive into to look into the history of the business company like Berkshire Receptionists has been providing these services for a few decades will be a hundred years. I mean, since the days of way before there being technology, driving any automation, we’ve got core boards, I’ve got one right here in front of me. I’d love to turn around and show you and show you the legacy and history of, of the business. It’s the experience. It’s the loyalty within the teams and the virtual receptionist themselves that are being there that are part of these businesses for long periods of time and how well they know the needs of these businesses and how well they then deliver the service that then does all of those what’s. We talked about I think it’s, it’s about going back and, and looking at how those folks as well, how we a business like ours also made it through the past few years, right.

Luis Bedoya (23:00):

You know, how we were able to, you know, deal with the same challenges folks are dealing with, and yet still be able to at scale, provide these solutions to, you know, clients almost on the fly. I remember law firms calling us it’s literally, it was like a wave you saw back in March of, in April of 2020, where the wave was going downwards. There was nothing, there was a complete tone, deaf silence in business. And then April, excuse me, March and April. And then by may of 2020, you had a title wave and you had folks knocking on our door, Hey, help us answer our phones, help us do this, help us do that. And to be able to be reactive to that adaptive to that, and help folks, you know, and earn their trust, not just buy all those accolades and the history, et cetera. But by then delivering, you know, the value was big for us, you know, to making those, you know, like I mentioned, sort of intangible moments, tangible again. So I think it goes into doing into due diligence. It goes into certainly you know, understanding who you’re gonna work with and leveraging all those things that they’re gonna, they’re gonna make your life simpler and your business life simpler, and even your personal life more, you know, enjoyable at that point. Right.

Zack Glaser (24:02):

Right. That makes me think, you know, with the trust starting from there, you know, we talked about getting time back in your life as being one of the big things of taking parts of your company and getting them out to third parties. You, you get a little bit of your time back, you get it back with hiring you to get it back with retention, but it all does start from that trust. And I think with Berkshire specifically, you’ve got concierge-level experience. You’ve got people that have been doing this, like you said, for a long time, if we have a company that we can trust, then they can do the things like the screening leads before we kind of leave here. What are the other things that Berkshire is bringing to the table here that people can expect?

Luis Bedoya (24:50):

Well, let’s recap some of the things we discussed when we talked about the lead intake and how that varies per illegal focus, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, you know, personal injury versus criminal versus business law, maybe looking at different needs. So being able to create customization around that, allowing that to then create a flow, a natural flow into the, you know, the needs of that, you know, firm, whether it be through call transfers, direct online appointment scheduling, which have real time synchronization with the firm’s appointment calendars, , you know, and then, you know, getting all that data, once it’s all collected directly injected into those systems that are now running the practice. That’s the, what, now we’re talking about the delivery of that in a 24/7 scaled service, which now you can put your head on a pillow at night, instead of worrying about, you know, answering that call at 10 o’clock at night, when you’re go into the office the next day.

Luis Bedoya (25:45):

And you’re, you’re training a few other team members. You go into that, knowing that those calls can be handled 24 hours a day and very much customized experience as well, whether they be time sensitive, you know, day sensitive, et cetera, they’re, there’s a lot of customization and creativity that can go into the flows to help businesses feel like what they’re doing. And firms feel like what they’re doing is handing off the reins to a receptionist that just literally isn’t there, right. It is my virtual receptionist, but I feel like it’s my virtual receptionist.

Zack Glaser (26:17):

Right. And I think that’s the idea here kind of goes back to that trust of is this virtual receptionist, is this third party gonna represent me well? So if people want to learn more about Berkshire Receptionist, you guys have a, a wealth of information on your website, but specifically they can go to Berkshirereceptionists.com/lawyerist.

Luis Bedoya (26:40):

That’s correct.

Zack Glaser (26:41):

And they’ll be able to get a, a good deal of information there. What, what can they expect there?

Luis Bedoya (26:45):

That great amount of information that’ll be keyed in specifically to the legal community? Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, we’re gonna have a lot of good content there that will allow them to sort of enrich themselves around, you know, why, you know, Berkshire Receptionists and then some tats that could help educate them on challenges that other folks in the legal community are already seen and how we can help them they’ll have direct access as well, to be able to book direct appointments with our, you know, business development team, that’ll start creating that sort of, you know, concierge level engagement, right from the start with them, you know, so they, they get a one-on-one interaction, right from the start, you know, to be able to start customizing what those needs are and, and how they would fit and flow with the services we can provide. But we’re really trying to enrich and educate on this specific page.

Luis Bedoya (27:30):

Folks in the legal community will actually provide direct links as well to this podcast as well. So they can share with others. They’ll certainly be opportunities there for us to not just in enhance and, but also educate and get them in folk in the hands of the folks on our end that are gonna be, you know, really able to help, you know, create that sort of customized concierge experience. We keep referencing, you know, at the end of the day, you know, we’re there when they need us. So you wanna make sure that they, you know, feel that right from the start.

Zack Glaser (27:59):

Fantastic. Well, Louis, I, I really appreciate your time here and your expertise on talking about this. Again, if people want to learn more and to connect with Berkshire Receptionists, they can go to Berkshirereceptionists.com/lawyerist, and they’ll get a wealth of information there.

Luis Bedoya (28:16):

Absolutely. Right. You know, thanks so much for your time today. Zack, it was really an honor to get a chance to, to work with you, to, to reach out to folks in, in the legal community and, you know, provide some value and some education and, and hopefully you know, connect the dots with some folks that really need that help, that, that want to trust, you know, a provider that, that could then also, you know, help them, you know, solve some of these business challenges and, you know, maybe get a little extra sleep at night. You know, we’d love to be able to do that. Like I said, Hey, look, we’re there when you need us.

Zack Glaser (28:47):

Well, I appreciate it. Luis and the website is gonna be in the show notes of Berkshirereceptionists.com. Thank you. Thanks for your time.

Luis Bedoya (28:54):

Thanks Zack.

Announcer:

The Lawyerist Podcast is edited by Britany Felix. Are you ready to implement the ideas we discuss here into your practice? Wondering what to do next? Here are your first two steps. First. If you haven’t read The Small Firm Roadmap yet, grab the first chapter for free at Lawyerist.com/book. Looking for help beyond the book? Let’s chat about whether our coaching communities, right for you. Head to Lawyerist.com/community/lab to schedule a 10 minute call with our team to learn more. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not endorsed by Legal Talk Network. Nothing said in this podcast is legal advice for you.