In Brief: The Columbus Bar Blawg

by Bradley W. Miller, Burton Law LLC

One of the many benefits that membership in the Columbus Bar Association provides members, and that I personally use through my firm, is a discount for Ruby Receptionists (click here for details). Ruby Receptionists provide virtual receptionists for you or your firm at a fraction of the cost of an on-site receptionist.

At Burton Law LLC we have used Ruby for over six months now for our firm phone system. Before that we used another virtual mailbox/receptionist service, but it quickly became unable to provide the level of service we needed. With Ruby, I can say that the service has been great and I have had no complaints.

When someone calls the firm number (we have a local number for each of our three cities), one of the virtual receptionists answers, gets some information from the caller, and direct-dials the appropriate attorney. I have Ruby call my cell phone so I can take calls from wherever I happen to be. Just like with a staff receptionist, if I don’t want to talk to the caller, I can have Ruby take a message or put the caller through to voicemail. Voicemails are recorded and sent to my email as WAV files so I can listen to them whenever I have the chance as well as save them to the case file.

My favorite feature is that I can go online or through the Ruby iPhone app and set my availability. So let’s say I know I am going to be in court on Friday from 9:00am until 2:00pm. I can instruct Ruby to send all calls during that time to voicemail. Or if you have a recurring event, such as a monthly CBA committee meeting, you can let Ruby know you are unavailable on the third Thursday of each month from 11:30am until 1:30pm and have the receptionist notify the caller you are out of the office. This feature is also useful to block off time to work with no phone interruptions.

Ruby provides a free 14-day trial, so if you are interested I would recommend that you take advantage of this great CBA benefit and check Ruby Receptionists out.