If you are using an fully automated phone system, from a legal marketing perspective, you’d be better off hiring someone like Lily Tomlin’s “Ernestine” and using her phone system. We should not forget that we are in the personal services business, and attempts to use technology to the fullest, may actually be putting law firms in the impersonal service business instead.

RainToday.com has an article by Laurie Brown of The Difference.net about making it easy for clients to do business with your firm. Check out Laurie’s tale about how a person named Barbara who lost track of what really matters.

"She forgot that her clients were not in the way of her business — they were her business."

It reminded me of a post I did earlier this year entitled “Is Your Receptionist A Human Or Machine?” and how terribly wrong I think that practice is for ANY firm.

Clearly, your clients would prefer Ernestine.