Thomas Davenport is an attorney at the Davenport Firm in Pineville, Louisiana. He runs a small operation with one assistant. When she's out, the phones fall on him.
The Challenge
For years, Thomas cycled through ways to handle calls. First, he tried an Onyx voicemail system for after-hours calls. It wasn't enough. Then he hired a traditional answering service.
"I was not pleased with the work," Thomas says. "It was incredibly expensive and not very effective."
The answering service bill ran between $1,000 and $2,500 a month. The results didn't match the cost. "Those did not always translate into a profit, right," he says.
And when his assistant was sick or had to take care of her child, Thomas was back to juggling calls himself. There was no reliable backup.
The Solution
Thomas decided to try Upfirst. He wasn't expecting much.
"I did decide to give Upfirst a chance. And, believe it or not, I was surprised," he says. "I was surprised how easy it worked. And how efficient it can be."
He set Upfirst up to take messages so he could review them on his own time. For a law firm, that distinction matters. People call at all hours, and not every call is an emergency.
"People do have a tendency to call you in the middle of the night over really something that does not require a middle of night call," Thomas says.
Now when a call comes in, Upfirst handles the intake. It asks callers about their situation and collects the details Thomas needs to decide what's urgent and what can wait until morning.
Thomas also uses the call recordings to fill in gaps. "I also like the fact that I can come back and listen to the call," he says. "So, if there's any kind of context I'm missing, I can pick up on it."
The Results
The biggest change is peace of mind. Thomas has a reliable backup for the first time, whether his assistant is out for the day or it's after hours.
"It's myself and my assistant, so if she's sick or has to go take care of her child or just do what all of us humans have to do, from time to time, I have somebody," Thomas says. "And that really cuts down on the anxiety."
He can look at a message and make a judgment call. "I can decipher. Oh, this person is a real need. This person can definitely wait till the morning," he says. "That gives me a choice, which is something I didn't have in the past."
Compared to the $1,000-2,500 a month he was spending on his previous answering service, the savings are significant.
"Y'all are doing a great job and y'all have really thought out some things with it," Thomas says. "It's more than just a answering service. It really is, and that's the part we appreciate."
