Voicemail is where retainers go to die

An employee who was let go this afternoon calls three firms tonight. The first two go to voicemail. The third replies within minutes and books a consult for Thursday.

That is the whole competition for a lot of employment inquiries. It happens after 6pm, and nobody at the firm sees it.

What voicemail actually does

A voicemail box records that someone called. It does not reply, ask whether the matter is in scope, or offer a time. By the time someone listens to it the next morning, the caller may already have a consult booked elsewhere.

Most firms can pull their own numbers on this: how many inquiries arrived outside business hours last month, and how many of those got a reply before 9am. The second number is usually the one nobody has looked at.

What a first reply needs to do

• Confirm the inquiry was received, from your firm, by name.
• Ask the two or three questions that decide whether the matter is in scope.
• Offer a consult time, or say who will call and when.
• Stop the moment a person at the firm takes over.

None of this needs legal judgment. Anything that does, such as whether someone has a case, goes to a lawyer.

Check it on your own month

Take last month's inquiries and sort them by the hour they arrived. For the ones after 6pm, note how long the first reply took and whether a consult was booked. The 30-minute audit does this with you if you want a second pair of eyes.