Every law firm needs to attract and keep new law clients to stay in business and make money. So, your law firm’s intake process is vital to your business model. Your intake process refers to everything you and the staff do from when someone contacts you until they sign up for legal services. Troubleshooting your law firm’s intake process by following the information below can help you increase revenue and ROI. Ready? Let’s get started. If you need professional help with your legal marketing, Forward Marketing is ready to assist.
If you do not prioritize the intake process at your law firm, it can negatively affect your ROI. You may have several well-known personal injury attorneys in your office. But big-name attorneys only matter as much if you have a solid lead intake process for attracting and retaining new legal clients. When the client cannot get that big-name attorney on the phone when they need them, it can affect your company’s bottom line.
If the intake process has any holes or weaknesses, prospects will leave unsatisfied and contact another attorney. Did you know that 87% of people looking for an attorney choose the first one they contact? You want to be sure your law firm’s intake process is smooth so that when that person makes contact, you sign them up.
Plus, according to a recent survey, 74% of legal prospects, prefer a phone call for contacting a lawyer, so that initial impression on the phone matters. Once your admin staff identifies that the prospect is someone your firm wants, you should get them on the phone with an attorney quickly.
When troubleshooting the intake process, the place to start is to ensure you make an excellent initial impression. After all, in any city you are in, many attorneys compete against you, so standing out positively helps. At every contact point at your law firm, be sure that the firm is friendly, easy to work with helpful, and knowledgeable.
For example, the people answering the phone are critical for making that fantastic first impression. They should pick up the phone by the second or third ring, be friendly and outgoing, and provide helpful information. They also should collect enough information from the person to determine if an attorney should speak to them at that moment.
You should hold refresher training with your administrative staff every few months to review phone etiquette and how to handle each lead that calls the office. How that initial phone call goes is critical to keeping them in your lead pipeline. If you have prospects waiting several minutes on the phone to talk to an attorney, they will move on to another lawyer. You do not want that to happen.
Related to making a good impression is your firm’s website. Your website design should be fast, easy to navigate, and have a clear call to action on every page. Contacting the office should be accessible from every page. Be sure that the page loads quickly on cell phones and PC. If it takes more than two seconds to load or displays incorrectly, they may go to another lawyer.
Another potential area for improvement in the intake process is if administrative staff is typing or writing down client contact details. Keep the manual entering of information to a minimum. Instead, use a CRM that enters client contact details automatically. This reduces time wasted on administrative work and also reduces errors. When you rely on automation to manage your data entry needs, your ROI will rise.
Another potential bottleneck in the intake process is calling clients to schedule them for a consultation. Instead, invest in direct schedule access technology so prospects can set up an appointment conveniently for both of you. Automated appointment scheduling reduces phone calls and misunderstandings, which can help your law firm marketing. Many legal experts say that self-scheduling is one of the best ways to boost customer service and ROI.
As mentioned earlier, it is essential to have an effective protocol that all staff follow when prospects and clients call the office. Every employee should be trained in the protocol, and follow-up training should be conducted regularly. Having a protocol set up will improve the law firm’s intake process and also will make the office look as professional as possible:
Whether your law office handles car accidents or divorces, people contacting you are in a challenging moment. They want reassurance and fast information about how to solve their legal problem.
People who are stressed and seeking legal advice can quickly be overwhelmed with paperwork. Even at our best, a pile of legal papers can be confusing. While paperwork is needed to sign up a client, it helps the intake process to digitize and automate document signing as much as possible. DocuSign is a great option, but many other excellent software options exist. When an office does not rely on paperwork, you can spend less time on paperwork and more on legal cases. This will streamline your intake process and increase ROI.
A common problem area for a firm’s intake process is the administrative team is not as well educated about the process as they could be. Remember that the team handling phones and walk-ins are the ones who make the first impression. They also play a role in deciding the cases taken and turned down. So, you should educate your staff to streamline operations and improve profits. Here are some suggestions:
The tips mentioned above will help to improve your intake process considerably. Here are some other ways to improve the process when prospects call the office:
Forward Marketing is an industry leader in legal marketing. We can analyze your intake process and offer recommendations for improvements. Some of the lawyer marketing services we provide include SEO, PPC, and content writing. Our legal marketing team can help improve your marketing and firm ROI, so contact Forward Lawyer Marketing today at (888) 590-9687.
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