Analytics is the name of the legal technology game these days. There was a day when you could make a go of it by building a product that merely did what it promised to do. Now, you’ve got to do what you promise and deliver sortable, actionable data proving that you did what you promised to do. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. From document management to eDiscovery, every corner of the legal tech world is better off putting data in the hands of lawyers. But it has changed the landscape as tech vendors scramble to find ways to tease information out of their core offerings.
Phone calls seemed like the last unquantifiable frontier. But Smith.ai just launched a new service putting a wealth of data in the hands of customers.
Smith.ai, a virtual receptionist service that answers call, texts, and webchats and handles everything from client intake to collecting payments, unveiled a new Call Dashboard today allowing clients to track phone call metadata:
The new dashboard reveals a wealth of details about calls handled by Smith.ai receptionists, including whether an appointment was scheduled, a payment was taken, or the call included a warm phone transfer. Clients logging in to their BI dashboard immediately see an overview of their call history, and can quickly drill down into data visualizations that reveal call volume, blocked calls, call disposition, actions taken, and other essential metrics. Data visualizations deliver key insights into conversation intelligence, providing business owners and operators with a clear understanding of the relationship between call metadata and business performance.
Clients can track relative volumes of calls over time by caller type — which can be segmented by day, week, or month for this year or last year — and use drop-down menus to filter information by status, disposition, and priority. An option to view or hide spam calls is also available, helping clients understand how many nuisance calls Smith.ai has blocked for free on their behalf in a given time period.
The system allows the client to make instantly make changes to Smith.ai’s call strategy as well.
Getting these phone calls right can have major repercussions as well. Smith.ai announced a new partnership with MyCase and already integrates with tons of CRM platforms, marketing automation software, and scheduling systems. That’s a lot of information piping into other corners of the business.
Aaron Lee, CEO and co-founder of Smith.ai., said, “These new data visualization features are unique in the industry, and give our clients a much better way to monitor and analyze key metrics for each business service they outsource to our receptionists. With zero training, our clients can use our Call Intelligence tools to refine their decision-making to optimize results.”
Lee confirms that customers, particularly small businesses, had requested more insight to maximize their return on investment in the overall product. Because it’s one thing to sell a service and another to sell control of that service, something that clients can only have if they’re armed with data they can use.
The analytics arms race is raging out there and it’s changed the tech world from “what will they think of next” to “what will they show us about what we already do next.” And most of us are eager to find out.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
