Why You May Be Losing Out, Even When Your Intakes Are Strong
Law firms easily pass off the intake process as a necessary but less desirable part of the job. But you need to care about intakes because if you don’t, you’re leaving good cases — and money — on the table. Following the best practices for legal intakes can mean the difference in standing out from the competition versus fading into the background.
Research shows that the conversion rate for online sales is 8x greater in the first five minutes than at any other time. This means the chances of landing a new client from a call or online submission drop precipitously every moment you don’t respond.
And there is a ton of lost potential out there. A report by Martindale-Avvo found:
- Responsiveness was the single most important thing to potential law clients (47.6%).
- Being “slow to respond” was the biggest deterrent to hiring a firm (52.6%), and bad reviews were the third-biggest deterrent (42.1%).
- Just over a fifth of all web users (23%) contacted three attorneys before making a decision.
- More than half (53%) hired a lawyer within a week.
Every unanswered call is the loss of a potential client, and every minute you waste is money you lose.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Here at MeanPug, we know a little something about best practices for legal intakes. We help our clients grow their online business through customized SEO, ads, and other marketing services. We know best practices help maximize growth and revenue — and we’re here to help you do it.
First, Create a Custom Intake Form
Sure, there are basic questions you need to ask in every intake, but your process should be customized to your specific needs. Why? Because not every caller is truly a potential client.
Some folks need a service that, flat out, you just don’t provide. Others may not have a viable case at all. The right intake form can help funnel true leads to the right attorneys.
Create an Introductory Statement
Not every caller will be in the ideal state of mind when they call. You want to make sure the first thing the intake specialist does is explain who they are:
Example: “Thank you for calling ABC Law Firm. I’m Jane, an intake specialist with the firm. I’m going to ask you a few questions.”
Capture Each Caller’s Contact Information
Before anything else, you need your callers’ contact information. Ask:
- “May I have your full name?“
- “Are you calling for yourself or someone else?“
- “May I have your telephone number?“
- “May I have your email address?“
- “May I have your home address?“
These specific questions are important for two reasons: first, you need a way to contact the caller in case the call gets cut off. Second, you need the basic information that will let you run a conflict of interest check – and a name alone may not be enough to determine whether there is one.
“Thank you for calling us. Before anything else, I’d like to ask you a few questions about you and your contact information, to ensure we can get back to you if we get disconnected. Whenever you are ready, I can begin.”
Build Your Customized Intake Questions
Now you can build your customized intake form. We recommend a mix of yes/no, either/or, and open-ended questions. Mixing up the patterns can keep people engaged. It also tells clients what information they need to give you.
For example, personal injury firms may ask “Were you injured in a slip and fall?” as a yes/no question. Then, they will give the caller a chance to say more by following up with “Where did the accident take place?,” or “Did anyone witness the accident?”
Pro Tip: No one says the whole intake process needs to be done in one phone call. Once you have their contact information, you can ask callers if they want to hang on the line to complete the longer process. If not, give them the option to schedule another call to finish up. You can also email them a link with case-specific questions for them to fill out at their leisure.
There are endless ways to customize your intakes. MeanPug Digital regularly helps clients with the best practices for legal intakes because we know that good cases start here.
Next, Choose Your Intake Specialists
There are a lot of opinions out there about intake specialists. There are also a lot of intake specialist jobs – specifically for law firms – listed on websites like Indeed. You need folks who can answer the phone, respond to emails, and process web chats (if applicable) not just during office hours but also in the evenings and on weekends.
Your choices then become:
- Hire an in-house intake person (or persons). Many firms have a small, dedicated intake team that can push potential cases toward the appropriate department and act as gatekeepers for non-viable cases.
- Rotate intakes between attorneys. Some firms choose to have attorneys handle intakes because lawyers know best what kinds of cases they want.
- Hire an outside service. Some firms may push the entire intake process out of the office to focus entirely on their caseloads.
- Some combinations of the above. This is pretty typical of law firms: an in-house intake specialist for calls, emails rotate between attorneys, and an off-site company handles intakes that come in via web chat or after office hours.
Your budget and staff may determine the best option for you, but we recommend you revisit your intake process annually. What works one year may not be the best option next year, and by regularly reviewing your leads, you may notice patterns of what works and what doesn’t.
Pro Tip: Kinect, a text messaging and reputation management platform, reports that 89% of consumers prefer texting to calling and that 78% of consumers say that texting is the best way to reach them. Consider adding this capability to your intake process to keep potential clients engaged, even during off hours and weekends.
For example, you may find that your attorneys, while great in the courtroom, are not particularly good at handling intakes.
Finally, Train Your Intake Specialists on Best Practices for Legal Intakes
Would you want to hire a lawyer who sounds bored when you’re telling them about your case? Would you hire a firm with a website that says they take medical malpractice claims, only to be told over the phone that they don’t because they changed their practice years ago but forgot to update their website? (Shameless plug: we can help with that too!)
It’s a tightrope walk. You need to train your intake people to be responsive, empathetic, and engaged with potential clients but also firm enough to turn down non-viable cases.
This training may include:
- Scheduling empathy training for the entire staff (including the attorneys). Reviewing the types of cases the firm is taking, which cases are priorities, and which callers should be directed to another law firm.
- Creating custom “if/then” prompts for your intake form (If a client says “A,” then respond with “B”).
- Listening to calls and reviewing web chats once a week with your team and discussing less-than-pleasant interactions.
- Sending out follow-up surveys to folks who contacted the firm, asking about their intake experience.
All of this takes time, but it’s time well spent. Why? Because….
Best Practices for Legal Intakes Do More than Increase Case Loads
Here’s the truth: your Google reviews matter. A lot. So, take a minute to look at your listing, and see if any of these statements look familiar:
- Called and never received a call back!
- I was hung up on because I didn’t want to give my email until I spoke with a lawyer. I just didn’t want to get any unwanted emails if my case wasn’t taken!
- Called them and was cut off by their receptionist who told me she had more calls and to give her a short version of my story.
- Rude staff that will waste your time.
- Very disrespectful in how they handle phone conversations. Very unprofessional.
Each of these statements is a real, one-star review left on a law firm’s Google Business Profile, and not one of them concerns how the attorneys handled these cases. Because they never got that far. These are all about the intake process – specifically, the intake process over the phone.
Based on data compiled by Martindale-Avvo, online reviews are “very important” to 46.6% of folks who searched for lawyers online.
We want potential clients to hire you; that’s our primary goal as a digital marketing company. But there’s only so much we can do. How your intake specialists interact with potential clients can make all the difference in whether your firm makes it past the first phone call.
Small Changes Can Yield Big Results When You Incorporate Best Practices for Legal Intakes into Your Process
Now that your intake form is set up and you’ve trained your team, it should be easy to retain clients, right?
Right.
Small changes can yield big results. And MeanPug can help!
We’ll work with you to:
- Update those GBPs. Add photos of your interior and staff, answer questions, and share blogs, pages, and attorney profiles. Update your services and products. The more information folks can find about you online, the better.
- Track your data. You want to track how many leads/calls you get each week, how many are viable cases, and how many come from each outlet. You also want to track how many times a potential client contacted you, how often you contacted/tried to return contact with that client, and how long it took from the initial contact with the firm to an attorney calling that client back.
- Keep intakes consistent and easily accessible. A pen and paper just don’t cut it anymore. Make sure everyone in your firm has the same intake form and has access to where those intakes are stored. Ensure everyone follows the same basic plan.
- Make scheduling easier for clients. There’s a reason most legal websites have “sticky” contact information (forms that slide down the page as you scroll), as well as multiple contact forms, webchats, and pop-ups: you want to make it as easy as possible for folks to get to you. Your post-intake follow-up needs just as much attention. Consider:
- Adding an automatic “thank you” pop-up and triggered email following all contact. This can link to a longer form for additional case information if needed.
- Using an app like Calendly to allow clients to schedule their initial consultations at a time that works for both them and you.
- Offering video and phone consultations. Many firms did this during Covid, but if you’re late to the game, now is a fine time to start!
- Requesting feedback on potential clients’ experiences at every part of the process. You’d be surprised how willing people are to complete a short survey about their experiences.
Your intake team is like a sales team, so you should treat them as such. After all, they could be the ones closing the deal for you!
Let’s Take Your Intakes to the Next Level
The marketing company you choose to help you build your client intake process can make a massive difference in how you do business going forward. At MeanPug Digital, we succeed when we help law firms succeed. From intake forms and data tracking to web design and SEO, we do it all.
Give us a shout and let our team help yours grow.
