Posting bail is a significant part of the criminal case process. Therefore, most defendants anticipate posting bail and securing an early release from jail when they are arrested and booked into a jail cell. California courts are known for setting high bail amounts, making a bail bond the only option for most defendants.
If you own and run a bail bonds company, your phone will always be ringing with clients seeking your services to post bail. Some clients will call to source your services, while your existing clients will contact you to ask questions about the process. Employing and training receptionists to handle all these calls can be hectic and costly.
Sometimes, you may need to put some callers on hold, which will cause you to lose customers. For this reason, hiring a call-answering service to help you handle your office calls is a wise decision. With thousands of answering service providers, each claiming to be the best, you can consider the following factors when choosing an answering service for your bail bonds company:
Hours of Operation
Arrests occur at any time in California. No one wants to sit behind bars after an arrest on the weekend, waiting for their bail bonds company to open so they can process their release. Since most criminal activities occur at night, your company will receive calls at all times. The moments following an arrest can be challenging for defendants and their families.
Therefore, when someone contacts your company and their call is not returned immediately, they will move on to the next. Your answering service must have a critical quality: the ability to operate 24/7. The faster your agents receive the call, the faster you can process the bail bond agreement and help the client secure a release.
Advanced Services
Most telephone answering services will only take your calls, note down messages, and forward important calls to you. However, bail bonds are a critical service. The thought of spending even a single night behind bars will not sit well with the clients. For a bail bond company, each call is equally important. Your callers are either potential clients seeking your services or existing clients with burning questions.
If any of the calls were to be put on the back banner, one of the clients would suffer tremendously and not be satisfied with your services. For example, if two people call with different issues, an in-house receptionist may concentrate on a new client still in jail. If the other client has been bailed out, they could inquire about a bail condition.
Assuming that the issues in the existing client’s matter are not urgent, it may cost money for the bail bond company and the person who posted bail. When you work with an answering service that has advanced services, different answering service agents will address different matters, which helps you serve your clients better. However, not all answering service providers have the advanced option. Therefore, you must be careful when choosing the right service.
Proper Business Representation
An answering service is supposed to ease the operations of your business and help you grow. Therefore, your choice of answering service can make or break your bail bonds company. Professionalism is one of the qualities you must look for in the answering service with which you want to work.
A bail bonds company is as critical as the legal business. A person sitting behind bars is challenging for their family. Therefore, the steps they take to ensure a release are careful. When someone contacts a bail bonds company, they will appreciate and gravitate towards a company where their first call is received with the utmost professionalism.
You may have difficulty ensuring that all your customers are served correctly without professional operators. The first impression you give of your company will determine how you work with your clients. Your first impression is formed through the exceptional feedback you provide to callers.
You should be careful when asking for referrals from friends. You must consider the insights of people in the bail bonds industry. This is because the representation needed for a medical practice is different from the one you need in a bail bonds company.
Your Budget
One of the most critical aims of hiring an answering service for your bail bonds company is to save on costs. Unlike working with in-house receptionists, you will not need to invest in hiring and training staff. Instead, you will pay for the services that you receive.
Partnering with an answering service ranges from $0 for a free trial to any price depending on your arrangement and call traffic in your company. Most companies do not have a flat rate but instead will charge you for each call or message they take for your bail bonds company. The more calls that come through to your business, the more you are likely to spend on an answering service.
Other answering services have different price tiers, which makes the cost more affordable. Before you seek the services of a telephone answering service, you need to have a budget in mind. This will help you bypass service providers who are outside your budget range. Additionally, you can dictate the pricing model for your business. Common billing structures for answering services include:
- Per-minute billing. With this pricing model, the answering service will bill you per minute spent handling your call. The per-minute billing model is similar to a cell phone plan. Depending on your call volume, a good answering service will provide multiple plans from which you can choose. After exceeding the maximum calls for your plan, you can pay for the overages. This billing method is affordable since you will pay less when business is slow or you are receiving fewer calls.
- Per-call billing. With the per-call billing structure, the service provider bills you for each call or message that comes through their agents. The number of minutes an agent spends on the call will not affect the amount you spend under this structure. You must pay extra for messages and calls that must be transferred or dispatched.
Security and Confidentiality
The information given to a bail bonds company is extremely sensitive. Most clients will be vulnerable and want to explain the facts of the case on the call. Some of the information needed to begin the bonding process is personal and can affect the person’s case outcome. Therefore, the issue of confidentiality is critical.
Bail bond agents understand that information discussed with them is supposed to remain confidential. However, when you involve third parties who are answering service agents, you must be careful to maintain confidentiality. If personal information about a client were to leak, you would lose the clients and have a ruined reputation that could drag your business down.
Therefore, you must ensure that the service you choose has rules and policies to secure information from your clients.
Experience in the Bail Bonds Industry
The answers to questions and concerns from a bail bonds company must be accurate and specific to the industry. While your answering service provider can customize their services to your company's needs, having a provider with prior experience is a plus. The answering service provider can offer tips and suggestions based on previous experience serving similar clients.
Additionally, you can save time writing scripts and customize the answering service. You can ascertain the expertise of an answering service by asking industry-specific questions and assessing their services during the free trial period.
Excellent Reputation
The reputation of the answering service provider reflects the type of services they will offer. You can look into a company’s reputation by checking its online reviews and asking others who may have used its services. A person will give a good review if an answering service provider meets their specific needs and provides the services they expect.
However, you should be careful when reviewing the reviews since some companies have staged online profiles. Meeting with the company and trying their services is the best way to ascertain the quality of their services.
Therefore, looking into reviews from a company like yours would be wise. Moving forward with an answering service provider with a good reputation gives you confidence that they will serve your needs.
Bilingual Answering Service Agents
After English, Spanish is the most common language in the United States. Therefore, your bail bonds company will receive calls from Hispanic clients who are not fluent in English. The moments following an arrest are traumatizing. For most bilingual clients, having to speak with an agent that speaks their language puts them at ease. The client gains confidence in the business and their ability to handle the situation.
If you work with in-house receptionists, you must hire a bilingual receptionist and spend time and money to train them. This can be more expensive than hiring an answering service with bilingual agents. With a bilingual answering service, your bail bonds company becomes more attractive to clients and can serve multiple people.
The success of any business is based on its clients. Therefore, the more people you serve, the more profit you make, and your company will grow.
Compatibility with Third-Party Apps
One of the hurdles you may face when finding the right answering service is that the provider's system must be compatible with your company's software. Since answering services are meant to reduce overhead costs, changing the existing software in your company is not an option.
Depending on the importance of the integration, you may have to rethink the importance of each aspect. During your trial period, you can check how the two systems work together and the changes needed to determine if you need to move forward with the particular answering service provider.
Ease of use
Most business owners hire an answering service to make things more accessible around the company. Therefore, your answering service must be easy to use and make the necessary changes. Choosing a provider that does not allow script changes or simple updates like changing an email address or updating a call schedule will only make your work more difficult.
Staff at a bail bonds company are busy handling the complicated process of posting a bail bond. The bondsmen could be out investigating a defendant’s eligibility for a bail bond or in court posting bail. Therefore, they do not need something else on their plates. Any distractions in trying to make changes to the answering service can waste time and deter the growth of your surety company.
It would be best if you worked with a company that allows a period for a free trial. You can test the services to see how well they align with your business needs. After the free trial period, you can decide to either sign a contract for the service or look for another service provider.
You should never feel pressured to enter a contract with a company that does not support the smooth running of your bail bonds company.
Find a Reliable Answering Service Provider Near Me
Bail bond companies work to provide financial assistance and expert guidance to defendants who lack enough money for cash bail in California. Therefore, it is not uncommon to have your bail bonds company flooded with calls from potential and existing clients. If bail bond agents take time out of their busy schedules to answer these calls, they will lose the time needed to attend to client needs like posting bail in court.
Additionally, hiring a receptionist can be expensive and time-consuming. Hiring an answering service for your bail bonds company is critical to accelerating its growth and maintaining your clients. Answering service agents will take all calls and communicate with the callers. The answering service comes with numerous benefits, which include saving time, avoiding losing clients, and saving time for the bail bondsmen.
However, finding a service provider that suits your company's needs can be challenging. When hiring a bail bond answering service, you must list the qualities you want the company to possess. This allows you to make the right decision for your bail bonds company.
