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One day last month I was on the phone with a client and he was going into great detail about his trouble managing his time.
He blamed email, voice mail and his cell phone for his problems. He said that there were just too many ways to get in touch with him.
We implemented four simple steps that have transformed the way he does business.
He has saved five hours a week (at minimum).
Here’s what he did:
1). He now responds, deletes or files every email when he reads it. He only looks at an item one time. He doesn’t “cherry pick” email messages – meaning he doesn’t go through the list and only respond to the easy ones. He takes them one at a time and plows through them.
2). He eliminated voice mail. His assistant fields and screens the calls and SCHEDULES a call back time for him. This has been transformational because she will schedule calls in fifteen minute increments. If a client needs something longer than that amount of time they are encouraged to book at telephone APPOINTMENT which is at least an hour in length.
3). He forwarded his cell phone to his assistant during normal business hours and rule 2 applies. After 7PM and before 8AM he takes calls on his cell phone (for emergencies only).
The final tip is his little secret that he didn’t want me to post.
The biggest time savings came when the attorney switched from hourly billing to flat fees.
Why? Isn’t that counter-intuitive?
The truth is that people were trying to catch the attorney off guard with their phone calls (hoping they could get 15 minutes of free advice). Once this need to try and “sneak a call in” went away, the frequency of the calls went down while the quality of the client interaction improved.