Lawyers and professional services providers: Do you want to thrill your clients, customers, prospects, and other contacts (CPs)? If so, either become “ultra-responsive” or at least consider leveling up your responsiveness game and tool kit.

The fact is this: In this current hybrid work world, the expectations, platforms, and tools available for and components of responsiveness have changed considerably! Studies show that many CPs now expect, want, and may need to reach a lawyer or other professional instantly, or receive some type of response “right away”—and by right away, CPs mean in less than one hour.

Don’t believe me? Ask your clients, including (but not limited to) the general counsel, in-house counsel, C-suite executives, deal makers, referral sources, internal professional staff members, and other professionals you serve and work with.

Decades of studies and surveys have shown (and continue to find) that the #1 complaint CPs have about lawyers (and other professionals) is their lack of timely responsiveness. This lack of timely responsiveness applies to ALL lawyers, whether a plaintiff or defense firm, and whether serving individuals, corporations, nonprofits, or any other entities, and applies to many other professional services providers too.

Lack of timely responsiveness leaves CPs feeling like you are too busy for them, they are unimportant, they/their matters are not a priority or important to you, and generally are unwanted and/or unloved. Plus, lack of timely responsiveness threatens lawyers’, law firms’, and other professionals’ existing client and other relationships, reduces your new business pipeline, and can negatively impact future growth.

The standard response time in the legal industry to get back to a CP used to be within two hours, but now it’s more like five minutes!

Why? Because most CPs seek to contact a lawyer due to a stressful, important, or urgent situation/matter. Most CPs these days (especially C-suite decision-makers, business owners, and entrepreneurs) are in a hurry, need legal advice/service fast, and don’t have a lot of time to waste waiting—for anything.

What Is the Number of Rings (and Total Time) Before Your Voicemail Picks up When Someone Calls Your Office and Cell Phone? 

If any of your phone lines make a caller wait for more than 15-30 seconds before your voicemail picks up, you have a problem. Many hard-driven professionals and clients are in a hurry, are short on time, and do not want to wait for a minute or more before they can leave you a voicemail (if you don’t actually answer within three rings, which is optimal). Check your setup now and minimize the number of rings before a personalized voicemail greeting picks up. The maximum number of rings should be five (but ideally, three).

Do You Have a Personalized Voicemail Message on Both Your Office and Cell? 

You should take the 5-10 minutes needed to personally record a short and sweet voicemail recording on all your phones. Include the name and phone number for your assistant or someone else in the firm whom a caller can contact if they have an immediate/urgent issue. Return calls within three hours. Work with your secretary/assistant to have him or her return your calls within three hours if you are unable to return them yourself. If you are too busy, don’t think it’s important, feel as though you are too important and high ranking or simply don’t have time to record a personalized voicemail greeting, then (and only if it’s truly necessary) ask an assistant to record one for you, but be sure it’s short and optimized. If you have not recorded a personalized greeting on both your office and cell, consider doing so now.

What Secure Messaging Options Do You Have and Use? 

According to the Legal Trends Report published annually by Clio, many CPs (especially younger ones) would rather text or email their lawyer than talk on the phone or face-to-face. They prefer not to call your firm or meet with you in real life. Most of us in the legal industry know that standard text platforms are not very secure, and while Google Voice provides a free forwarding number and texting through an app or browser, it may not be very secure either. So, ask yourself: Are you using stand-alone and secure messaging apps like Signal or What’s App for business? If not, ask your clients whether they would like secure messaging as a communication option.

Does Your Website Have a Chat or Contact Us Option That Is Staffed Regularly? 

If your firm has a chat or “Contact Us” feature on your website but no one checks it or responds regularly to inquiries and questions, consider improving your process. If your firm does not have a way for CPs to contact you on your website, create one ASAP and be sure to respond in a timely manner (i.e., as close to “right away” as is possible).

Optimize Your Email

Email Response Time—Now that “right away” is the new standard, ask yourself: How long (minutes/hours/days) does it take for me to respond to 1) what I perceive as important and urgent emails, and 2) the emails I receive that I do not perceive as important or urgent?

• Use Your Assistant/Professional Staff: Arrange to give your primary assistant access to your email (not the contents of the email, just the occurrence of incoming emails), and train them regarding how to respond for you. For example, “Sue is in court all day today. Please let me know if your email is urgent, and I can text her. Thank you.—Assistant Name, contact info.”
• Use OOO (Out of Office) Messages: If you are a lawyer or other professional who does not currently practice a disciplined, daily email approach, or if you are super busy and not always able to check and read your email at least once a day (ideally four to five times daily, based on CPs’ expectations and “need right aways” as described above), consider creating an OOO message and then use it every day. For example, “Thank you for your email. Due to my workload, I only check my email twice a day, at around 8 am MST and 3 pm MST. If you need to reach me urgently, please (either) call my cell _______ or contact NAME (assistant/backup) email, phone.”
• Check Your Email Signature: Ask your clients whether your email signature is received in their inbox as an attachment. If so, streamline and optimize yours. The email firewalls in many (especially large) companies and organizations either block images or convert email signatures into images, which is a small but frequent annoyance to clients because they are not sure when an attachment is substantive, especially when they are on the go, using their cell/mobile.

Your Presence on and Use of Social Media Platforms, Especially LinkedIn: Is your LinkedIn profile optimized? 

If you don’t think LinkedIn is a valuable tool and you don’t spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, check out the great two-part article, “Why Lawyers Need LinkedIn” by Ross Fishman. If you are not using LinkedIn to research, keep in contact, and stay in touch via its LinkedIn messaging feature, you are missing out.

Don’t let the “I’m too busy” excuse impede your responsiveness as described above (and ultimately
your success).

The fact is, if you have a job (and even those who don’t have a job but raise children or care for a family), you are busy almost ALL the time.



We all need to force ourselves to make time to schedule and do these types of very important yet not necessarily urgent tasks so that we stay in tune with the times. Or, maybe hire a virtual assistant to help.