In this pop-up episode, Tyson interviews Diana Stepleton, VP Partner Engagement at Ruby Receptionists. Good news! Ruby Receptionists is launching a new product specifically designed for solo lawyers, and Diana will tell us everything about it.
“That caller is so much more likely to become a client when a nice friendly person answers the phone.”
The Solo Product
Designed trully for a solo, it provides a phone number and it provides Ruby’s app; with 30 minutes of receptionist time. If most of the time you are available and you are taking your own calls, but sometimes you are in court or busy and you don’t want to miss that potential new client call, and you wanna make sure that someone live, friendly and helpful captures that, this product is for you.
The Website:
The plans:
https://www.callruby.com/maxlaw/
Maximum Lawyer listeners receive $75 off the first full month! Simply mention promo code
MAXLAW.
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Transcripts: Solo Lawyers Can Grow With a Live and Friendly Receptionist Service ft. Diana Stepleton
Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast, podcast.
Tyson Mutrux
Welcome everybody back to the maximum lawyer podcast. This is Tyson nutrix. This is a pop up podcast and I have a really awesome guest as people send with Ruby receptionists, she is the vice president of partner engagement. And I say it right or what’s your exact title?
Diana Stepleton
That is my exact title. I’ve been here almost 10 years and had a lot of different titles. But that is my title. Does your as they say,
Tyson Mutrux
awesome. So just introduce yourself and tell us more specifically what you do.
Diana Stepleton
Yeah, so I essentially work with all of our legal partnerships. So we are a member benefit of a lot of state and local bar associations, and then a lot of legal organizations, and I am the interface between Ruby and those organizations to help get the word out about Ruby and to help all those law firms grow and thrive.
Tyson Mutrux
And you’re also a podcast enthusiast, apparently, you and I talked 30 minutes a couple of weeks ago about all the podcasts we listened to. Yes. So yes, I’m a podcast junkie for sure. That’s good, then you’re on a podcast, that’s even better. So
Diana Stepleton
well. In fact, I was talking to a friend the other day, who said she wanted to start a book club, and I said, I want to start a podcast club, I want to start a club where people will listen to the same podcast I listened to, and then we can get together once a week and talk about them, you think that’d be great.
Tyson Mutrux
This is a fantastic idea. That’s a really good idea. That’s gonna be your next big project is the exactly podcast group. There you go, I like it. Alright, there’s something really cool that that Ruby is launching. And whenever you told me that, that was a great idea. So you want to introduce what it
Diana Stepleton
is? Absolutely, it is our new product. And it is our solo products is what we call it. We have long heard long, many, many years heard from particularly solo practice attorneys who are just starting out, or people who have been in a big firm that imploded and other going solo for the first time that they want to use Ruby. And they aspire to use Ruby at some point in the future when they get busy enough and the phone rings and have to justify the cost. But they aren’t quite there yet. And so for all these years, we have been trying to come up with a product that would serve them, well, that would not be a money losing proposition for us. And we have finally done. So we’ve taken a leap, and we’ve launched a new product that we call the solo product, it comes in at a price point of $149 a month. And as I mentioned earlier, we are a member benefit of a lot of state and local bars. And so those bring with them a discount. So if people are listening to this and interested in this product, that price point can actually be a little bit lower, because a lot of the bars have discounts. So definitely mentioned that if you’re a member of a bar, the product is designed truly for a solo, it provides a phone number, and it provides our app, which is very powerful. And I can explain that further in a moment. And then it provides 30 minutes of receptionist time. So it’s not a ton of receptionist time, it’s our smallest plan to date has always been 100 minutes of receptionist time. But this is enough that you know if most of the time you’re available, you can get your own calls. But periodically, you’re in court or you’re busy and you don’t want to miss that potential new client call, you want to make sure that someone live in friendly and helpful captures that we would do that for
Tyson Mutrux
you. So what are the main differences? I know, one is obviously the amount of time that you get are there any other big differences between the level of service that you get?
Diana Stepleton
There are big differences. There are some differences though, on the solo plan, it can truly only be one person were on the rest of our plans, there can be multiple people we’re taking call for. So it is really intended for a single individual. And then it’s a bit more basic in terms of we don’t have different types of call handling for different types of calls. So for example, on the bigger plans, we could say if potential new client calls do this with the call if a existing client calls you This is someone from the courts calls do this, you know that it’s much more simple, and everyone kind of gets the same friendly, helpful live call handling. I mean, it’s not like it’s bad call handling. It’s just not super different for the different types of calls can’t be customized in that way. For the larger plans. We also can do intake, a potential new client calls and answer frequently asked questions when we can’t do that on the smaller plan. And I think that’s really, of the things that people would notice. That’s really mainly it, people want to look on call ruby.com/pricing. On our pricing page, there is a little matrix that shows all the differences. And mostly though all of the services
Tyson Mutrux
is the same. We impose on our show notes to some people who can easily access that. So is this a month to month program? Is that a contract? And let’s say that it’s a solo that’s growing? So let’s say they’ve got the whenever they first start with this new product, it’s just them but after a few months or a year they are getting more cases and staff can they upgrade?
Diana Stepleton
Absolutely. People can move up and down in our plans whenever they like. And some people move on a somewhat regular basis. One might be on our impress plan that includes 100 receptions, minutes and they might have a super busy month and use closer to 200 minutes. And when they get that bill they look at it and they go I should have been on the gauge plan instead and they can just call up and let us know that we will retro actively adjust the builder Looking at, in fact, they don’t need to just change for the future month, but we will retro actively adjust the bill that they’re looking at. So yeah, someone’s on the solo plan and they want to add a person or they want to add intake or that just getting more minutes than the than the plan. And it shouldn’t say that then the plan allows for because there’s certainly you can go over your minutes and you simply pay an overage rate. But if it gets to the point where with your plan plus your overage minutes, you’re up to the $299 plan, then you might as well move up to that and get all the the other luxuries that come with it.
Tyson Mutrux
So I am familiar, and maybe I should ask this before, but I’m familiar with groovy. I think they’re the gold standard when it comes to answering service. So we’ve had Jill Nelson on before side a little bit about the customer service of Ruby in general. I know, it’s a vague question, but I want to make sure we will have an understanding what how good Ruby is.
Diana Stepleton
Yeah, you know, that really is our claim to fame is our extremely friendly and professional receptionists that the idea that we hire people who want to make a positive difference in the days of the people they’re speaking with, you know, our mission is kind of twofold is to help businesses grow, but also to keep human connections alive, you know, in this ever increasingly virtual world. You know, it is rare enough, when you call a business these days that a live person answers the phone, you know, typically it’s very common to either get, you know, like an automated attendant or to get voicemail, at which point you don’t know if the person you’re trying to reach has gone for an hour to lunch, or they’ve gone to the Bahamas for two weeks. Right? But you know, you get a live answer, then people might expect more what they think of when they think of like an answering service, which is, you know, someone answering and saying, answering service Hello, please, you know, whereas when we answer we go out of our way to sound friendly and charming and helpful. And we are trying to make a great first impression for the firm. And we’re like I said, we’re really trying to make a difference for that person. You know, most people when they’re calling a law firm, they’re stressed on some level, those generally aren’t the cash, I’m ordering flowers for my mom for Mother’s Day kind of feeling calls, you know. And so we recognize what a difference it makes to have a nice, friendly, engaging person answer and listen to you, you know, and make a difference for you. And it’s a win win, really, because the color feels so much better. But it also is a win for the firm, because that color is so much more likely to become a client when a nice friendly person answered the phone and helps them.
Tyson Mutrux
So talk a little bit about the app. And is it any different for if you have a solo Product Plan, or if you have the more souped up version? Is it any different and talking about the features that it has?
Diana Stepleton
No, it is not any different, all of the features of the app are available for people on our solar plan. And in fact, that’s really one of the biggest selling points of the solar plan that it comes with that app. So the app provides a number of different things in the app, you can see your calls and your messages and any interactions you’ve had, or would that we’ve had with any of your callers, you can also update us as to your whereabouts. So we call it status. So anything that you might say to your in house receptionist is you tap them on the shoulder and you walk out the door, you know, I’m going to lunch, I’m going to a meeting, I’m going to court, gonna go watch my kids baseball game, and if it’s really urgent, call myself. But otherwise, let me enjoy the game, you know that any of those things can be notified to Ruby via the app, you can also email us or call us. There’s all sorts of ways to let us know this. But the app is really the easiest, where you can go in and say, hey, I want my call handled a little differently for the next x period of time, because I’m at a different place or unavailable or whatever. And it can be very specific you can you can be as general as there’s a little hold called button and you can literally just tap this button and we will not try to book call through to you live until we hear from you again. Or you can be very specific. So when you open the app initially in the day, you can have it synced to your calendar. And so up will come all of your calendar events. And so you can go in and say, Oh yeah, I have these three meetings today, I want my call held during those meetings, super easy, you don’t have to go look for the times of the meetings. They’re all synced right there in the app. But you could also say, you know, I’m gonna go, I need to work on this project for the next four hours. So please, take messages for me unless John Smith calls because I’ve been waiting to hear from him for days, and I really need to talk to him. So put that call through. Or it could be the other way around. I’m taking calls. But if this person calls, don’t put them through because I don’t have the answers they need. And I don’t have time to try to unwind that piece right now. You know,
Tyson Mutrux
we all have those clients for sure.
Diana Stepleton
Exactly. But the biggest piece of the app, I think are the most exciting piece of the app is that it allows you to call out from your business line, have the call identify as coming from your business line. So if we’re hosting someone’s local numbers on that solo plan, I said that it comes with a phone number. If they don’t have one, we’ll give them one. If they do have one, they can port it to us and we become financially responsible for it so they don’t have to pay for a phone line. And if we’re hosting that local number for them, then when they open their app to make a call. The app says do you want to make this call from looks like it’s coming from your cell phone or make this call look like it’s coming from that business line, which gives you the opportunity to keep your cell phone private, even though you’re out and about you don’t necessarily want your clients knowing your cell phone number and you that professional image if
Tyson Mutrux
I didn’t realize about the phone number, that’s actually if you’re just a solo, like there could be some cost savings there. So that’s kind of nice. Something I don’t know, do you take faxes in the faxes come to the app,
Diana Stepleton
faxes do not come to the app currently, but in about a month or slightly, a little longer. People will be able to text in the app on their business line.
Tyson Mutrux
Oh, wow. Okay, that’s a pretty awesome feature. And you didn’t tell me that before. So that’s, that’s pretty cool. Alright, Diana, before I let you go, I do understand you got an offer for our listeners? Do you want to introduce what they offer us? Absolutely. So
Diana Stepleton
we are offering $75 off of the first full month. So on that solo plan, it’s half off on the first month, basically. And you can find that offer at call ruby.com. That’s ca LL. r uby.com/max. Law. So call ruby.com/max law.
Tyson Mutrux
Awesome. And last question for you. What’s your favorite podcast?
Diana Stepleton
My favorite podcast? I think I’m gonna go because I’ve been binge listening to it with Malcolm Gladwell is revisionist history.
Tyson Mutrux
Very good one. I recommend that one. You and I have talked about this. The third season is another good but it’s a good podcast otherwise, though, but that thank you so much for coming on. I
