You want more leads and more signed cases, right? As experts in law firm marketing, we have always focused our services on helping law firms generate more business by providing next level SEO services, running smarter PPC campaigns, providing great legal content and building beautiful websites that are focused on maximizing visitor conversion rates. As every law firm owner knows, there’s a lot more to signing up new cases than just great marketing. You still have to be able to convert those leads you get into actual paying clients, and intake is key component of that process. Improving your intake process will ultimately mean more signed cases and more revenue for your law firm, so it’s something your firm should take very seriously.
On average , the typical consumer will consider 3 to 5 law firms before they decide on which one to hire. In most cases, the law firms that have the best legal intake process are the ones that end up winning the competition for that consumer. So, what can you do to improve your law firm’s intake process?
Tips for Improving Your Intake
1. Have live answering available 24/7
For most firms, it makes no sense to have employees answering calls after hours. That’s why many firms today use a 3rd partry answering service to handle their after hours or overflow calls. In a recent study we ran, nearly 40% of people said if they were sent to voicemail, they would hang up and call a different law firm if they were trying to contact a law firm for a consultation. That means that case is most likely going to end up in the hands of a competitor. Don’t make that mistake, it’s not worth missing out on a case just because you don’t have a 24/7 answering serice.
We recently partnered with Alert Communications, the best legal answering service in the industry, to be able to provide this service to all our clients at a discounted rate..
2. Have empathetic people answering your phones
The importance of having great people answering your firm’s phone calls cant be understated. This can make or break a firm’s ability to sign up new clients. Over the years, we’ve listened to many intake phone calls for quality assurance purposes and sometimes the rudeness or lack of empathy shown by some intake people has been disturbing. We get it, it’s easy to become desensetized when a person has been doing legal intake for a long time but this is incredibly important to being able to sign up new clients. Make sure you have great people in this position.
3. Get back to people quickly
The faster you get back to people, the more likely you are to be able to sign that potential client. That’s because most people that are looking for lawyers are contacting multiple law firms. Getting back to people quickly means that the person is less likely to have already singed with another firm. In our recent study, 45% of study participants said they would want a call back within 1 hour. If you are too busy to get back to people right away, consider a 3rd party provider that can help you with this process.
4. Hire Bilingual Intake People
Did you know that in the U.S., 13% of the population speaks Spanish at home? A whopping 54 million people in the U.S. speak Spanish, and depending on where your firm is located and if you are targeting Spanish speakers, this might be very important. Not to mention it can be a differentiatior for some people looking to hire an attorney. If you dont have Spanish speaking intake people in house, again that’s where a 3rd party legal intake specialist can help. Our partner company Alert Communications can help here.
5. Listen to random call recordings to monitor quality
If you are recording your phone calls, you should occasionally listen to the calls for quality assurance purposes. You may learn a lot about your intake people by reviewing how they are handling calls.
6. Create a Scorecard for Your Intake People
You should be evaluating your intake people by a set of measurable standards. That might be total number of consultation appointments booked, total number of new cases signed from their intake, how quick they respond, or other metrics important to you and your firm. Give them goals and something they can shoot for and consider creating an incentive program for them.
7. Offer Live Chat on Your Site
According to our latest study, 24% of people would to use prefer live chat to ask questions for the firm. This number has increased over the years, as more and more people get used to using chat as an option on websites. However, don’t confuse this with chat bots. Consumers do not like chatting with chat bots if they can chat with a live human.
iLawyerMarketing now offers live chat to all our clients, as this now comes standard in all our website packages. This is another benefit of our partnership with Alert Communications, as we can also offer this at a discounted rate to our clients.
8. Use a client relationship management (CRM) system
Investing in a reliable client relationship management (CRM) system can significantly improve your law firm’s intake process. A CRM system can help you track and manage leads, monitor client interactions, and automate follow-ups. With a CRM system, you can efficiently capture and analyze data to identify trends, measure conversion rates, and identify areas for improvement in your intake process.
9. Evaluate and refine your intake process
Continuous evaluation and refinement of your law firm’s intake process is crucial for ongoing improvement. Regularly gather feedback from clients about their intake experience to identify pain points and areas for enhancement. Analyze metrics such as conversion rates, response times, and client satisfaction scores to measure the effectiveness of your intake process. Based on these insights, make necessary adjustments to streamline the process and deliver an exceptional client experience.