Attorney Phone Intake: Best Practices

Looking to boost your attorney marketing with best practices? Perfecting your phone intake service for quality leads is the best place to start. Here’s how.

The best attorney marketing practices will help you grow your client base, boost high-quality website traffic and increase profits. For example, optimizing your attorney Google My Business profile will help prospective clients find your business. However, if you don’t perfect your phone intake service — a relatively inexpensive endeavor — to efficiently convert high-quality leads into paying clients, you could be wasting your marketing budget.

A streamlined phone intake service is essential for making a positive first impression with clients and keeping your practice running efficiently. Fortunately, the following straightforward steps can help your law firm improve your phone intake service so you can attract, onboard, and retain new clients effectively.

1. Ensure You Have the Best Phone Intake Procedures

The following key elements are part of the best phone intake procedures.

• Don’t let your phone ring. In today’s digital world of instant answers, people expect instant service. If your phone is regularly ringing more than four times, prospects will hang up and try a competitor, leading to a damaging drop-off in your client base.
• Gather callers’ names and phone numbers first. This crucial information should be gathered immediately in case they are disconnected.
• Ask major qualifying questions early. To quickly pre-screen for qualifying leads, start by asking whether they are injured, have visited a hospital, who is at fault, etc.
• Have alternatives to your firm to recommend. For excellent customer service to prospects that aren’t a good fit for your firm, have other resources you can refer them to. This service nurtures positive word-of-mouth, a powerful and free marketing tool that can lead to future business from other firms.

2. Analyze and Measure Current Practices

To improve your phone intake services, create a benchmark against which you can measure your processes. Analyzing where your intake practices currently stand against where you want them to illuminates areas for improvement and greater efficiencies. To gather data for analytics, include a short customer satisfaction survey on your website and record random calls — while protecting client privacy — for training purposes.

3. Have Clear Phone Intake Policies In Writing

Having organized and documented policies will save time when your staff has questions and during new staff training. Ensure your team has clear answers to the following questions for handling your phone intake services:

1. Who handles calls or emails from prospective clients?
2. Who handles each of the steps involved in booking consultations?
3. Where are the intake forms stored?
4. How are potential clients tracked, so they don’t fall through the cracks?

4. Use a Quality Attorney-Only Intake Service

Answering the phone quickly and effectively can be a tall task, especially if the call intake is large. If your intake is struggling to keep up, using a specialized attorney-only intake service is crucial if you want to reap the rewards of your ad spend. Contact us if you need a recommendation for the best legal phone intake service.

Take Your Lawyer Marketing to the Next Level

If you’re ready to start generating more revenue from your law firm’s marketing efforts, get in touch with the team at Joseph Media. Call today or schedule a call, and let’s get to work!