Prospective clients will be evaluating your professionalism, skill, personality, and customer service from this moment forward. Not only is it important for lawyers to ask the right questions so they may decide on the best approach to a case, but lawyers additionally need to consider the client experience.

Your prospective client is also interviewing you, wasting time shuffling through paperwork or unorganized files looks unprofessional and could be the difference in winning over that client or not. Keeping this in mind, don’t waste the client’s time with a slow intake process. A streamlined, clutter-free client intake is a win-win, let’s go over some tips in this guide.

Ask yourself the right questions

When thinking about client intake, lawyers should think about themselves first. It may be an odd concept but it will ultimately save you and the client time. The key is to ask enough screening questions to evaluate if the client will be a good fit. To do this, lawyers need to determine their ideal client and have a good understanding of the services their firm can realistically offer.

When evaluating what questions to ask the client, lawyers should consider the following:

1. What key information do I need for this case?
2. What is my timeframe?
3. What type of cases can I take on?
4. Are there other recommendations I can make if I can’t assist the client?

The answers to these questions will be different for each lawyer but they should get you thinking about what information you will need during client intake. Clients will appreciate lawyers who have a firm understanding of their capabilities and services instead of stretching the truth just to sign a client on board.

Automate your client intake

The easiest way to clean up your client intake is to streamline it with automated forms. Automated forms allow lawyers and their team to easily access and distribute forms to the client without having to jump on the phone or come into the office. This is even more important now that virtual or hybrid offices are here to stay.

Platforms like PracticePanther allow lawyers to create customizable client intake templates that are easily interchangeable and responsive. Implementing automated forms will:

Reduce non-billable hours

Client intake can be time-consuming for busy lawyers. Allowing clients to independently fill out their information will save you time and resources that could be allocated towards managing other aspects of your practice.

Eliminate human error

If your firm is using a paper client intake form or filling out the form on behalf of the client, mistakes can be made. This isn’t to say that you or your team are doing poor work – human error is sometimes inevitable. Transitioning away from paper to an automated form will greatly reduce the potential for human error and increase data accuracy.

Improve the client experience

Accessibility is an important aspect of the client experience. Having the option for the client to fill out the form anytime, anywhere will increase the likelihood they will complete it and in a timely manner. PracticePanther forms were made with this in mind and can be used across all mobile devices.

Provide multiple client intake funnels

Your firm’s marketing strategy should always include multiple client intake funnels. This will increase your online visibility to prospective clients and offer them options to choose platforms they are comfortable with. Whether a potential client is coming from social media, landing pages, ads, or a review website, the intake process should be uniform.

Taking this into account, it’s important to ensure all members of your team are familiar with the intake process and have easy access to the proper forms. Client intake should be a team effort (if your firm is large enough to handle it) especially when prospective clients can come from any platform, at any time. If you operate a solo firm, automating client intake through multiple channels ensures that customer service doesn’t suffer.

Keep it simple

If there’s one thing lawyers want more of, it’s time. Adopting processes and software that offer a “set it and forget it” approach will allow lawyers to focus their time on assisting clients. By using this guide, you’ll be on your way to a tidy intake of clients for seasons to come.

The post A Lawyers Spring Cleaning Guide to Decluttering the Intake Process appeared first on The National Law Forum.

Your online marketing campaign is live: the website is up and running, you are ranking well in Google and Social Media is generating buzz around your law firm. You invested well, your phone is ringing, and clients are being signed. But are you tracking which sources are bringing the most revenue and which sources are biting off disproportionate chunks of your budget?

An efficient solution that can take the burden off of you and offer more precision is the use of Intake, or Customer Relationship Management (CRM), software.

Intake software comes in a variety of forms, shapes and sizes – for solo practitioners and for national full service firms – some of which are highly customizable and others that are template-based. Some are made solely to keep track of user information in a database. Some can help set your workflow by assigning leads and scheduling follow ups. And some allow you to assess your marketing strategies by providing Return on Investment (ROI) reports.

Return on Investment is a metric that allows you to compare investments, to see which bring in the biggest returns and which see the biggest losses. For law firms, the best ROI indicators are cost-per-lead or better yet, cost-per-case. Your firm will need to set your own goals and determine which metric is most important to you.

To track ROI you will need to know where each lead originates, how much your firm is spending on that source and whether the lead ultimately converts. The best Intake Software to track ROI should:

• integrate seamlessly with your intake channels, like quick contact forms and phone calls from multiple sources. (This charting is especially possible when you set up dynamic call tracking.)
• show the breakdown of leads by specific practice area so you can accurately evaluate your efforts.
• provide frequent reports to track changes over time or evaluate specific campaigns.
• be flexible without being cumbersome. Some solutions can be too cookie-cutter and may not fit the individual needs of your firm. Similarly, some intake software can be so difficult to customize and so powerful that it may not be the most cost – and time – effective solution for your firm.

The bottom line is to know what is making you money and what is costing you money. Don’t let your intake process damage your bottom line.

Bearing these criteria in mind, we have reviewed several leading intake software solutions for your firm to consider.

Avvo Ignite
Ideal for any firm size.
Ideal for firms practicing any area of law.
Starts at $199 a month.

Features:

• Avvo Ignite allows users to set up all tracking numbers and creates a dynamic call-tracking system by providing a code that can be integrated into your website, in online ads and in other marketing avenues. (The only source that might need manual entering is referrals.) This tracking enables attorneys to automatically know where every lead comes from, eliminating the repeated question to potential clients, “How did you hear about us?”
• The initial setup of Avvo Ignite is quick and easy. The number of marketing sources you want to track, the number of practice areas and the number of attorneys in your firm will determine how much customization is needed beyond initial implementation. An Avvo Ignite product specialist will provide support throughout the entire process.
• As soon as a lead comes into your firm, it will appear on the Ignite lead management dashboard. From there, leads can be automatically assigned to specific attorneys in the firm. The dashboard is shared by everyone in the firm, ensuring the team can track and manage the progress of all new business prospects from first contact to close.

• Notifications of new leads can also be delivered directly to your mobile device to ensure that you don’t miss a lead even when you are out of the office.
• Avvo Ignite has a page built specifically for the ROI Reports. There is a screen to set monthly marketing expenses by source and a report that will compare expenditures over time with the number of leads converted to display cost-per-case for each source.

• Avvo Ignite also features drip email campaign capabilities, and users are able to set the timeline of automatic actions. For example, upon receiving a new inquiry, you can schedule an email to be sent that says “Thank you for reaching out to us.” If the status of a lead is changed to “pending” on day 3 and the person was injured in an MVA accident, you can send an email saying that you are still working on the MVA case and provide additional information. If, say, by day 10 the lead’s status still hasn’t been changed to “client”, you can send an email saying that you are still interested in working with the case.
• Track how “hot” a prospective client is by assigning 1, 2 or 3 stars based on how interested, willing to pay, urgent, or timely the lead is.
• Additionally, Avvo Ignite provides custom intake forms that can be built for specific firms and practice areas. They also supply budget requests and online document signatures through secure partner sites that report whether the payment requests or documents were sent, viewed and paid or signed.

Captorra
Ideal for any firm size.
Ideal for personal injury and mass tort firms.
Starts at $200 per month.

Features:

• Tracks which phone numbers are assigned to which leads through a dynamic tracking system, or the origin of the source on the Web if a contact form was used.  For contact forms, Captorra uploads the analytics data that is available from the Web: which search engine the prospective client came from, which keywords they used, and so on. (Note: Keyword data is not available in Google, except via AdWords.)
• Captorra has several screens for reporting. The Dashboard features a snapshot of the most important information in one place. The Marketing Dashboards provide ROI information for each marketing source.  Management dashboards provide the tracking of individual intake specialist performance in converting leads into signed cases.

• A dynamic and clickable marketing report allows users to funnel down to the specific lead source and practice area.
• Through a workflow component, Captorra allows you to schedule your day through features such as scheduling follow-ups and automated email follow-ups that will automatically pull information from the intake database.
• Captorra supplies pre-made and custom intake forms. Smaller firms may want to use pre-made forms for the most used practice areas to skip customization. More specific intake processes will require that the additional questions be added. Already, Captorra has compiled 300 pre-made questions after one-and-a-half years on the market.
• The software drives the process of questioning by bringing up relevant questions based on previous answers. For example, if your staff is performing intake for a slip-and-fall case and when asked “Was there a sign?” the client answers “No”, the software may bring up questions about the shoes the client was wearing and other relevant questions.

• Captorra also provides an investigator management and referral (inbound and outbound) tracking system.
• Captorra will integrate with your firm’s current Case Management System.
• On a personal note, we found Captorra’s customer service exceptional and very prompt!

Captorra and Avvo Ignite were both designed specifically to address the question of what happens after a wave of prospective clients is delivered to the lawyer – both in terms of the automatic intake process and tracking vital analytical information for your marketing reports.

xRM4Legal
Ideal for a larger firm.
Ideal for firms practicing any area of law, especially firms representing businesses.
Cloud-hosted service is $678 per month for 10 users.
Firm-wide service is a one-time cost of $43,900 for up to 100 users.

Features:

• Backed by Microsoft Corporation, this CRM was created exclusively with law firms in mind.
• This software comes with the ability to install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 for Outlook. CRM for Outlook enables access to your CRM data through Microsoft Outlook. There is also an Apple app available to use the CRM on your Mac products.
• All customer information is stored on one screen; this CRM does not require users to flip between screens, but rather to tap various fields on one entry screen for complete details.

• Use organization records to keep track of commercial clients.
• The records are especially detailed, allowing you to chart details down to office visits.
• A click- or tap-to-connect feature easily allows you to email, make an appointment, or set a tactic (action item) with your clients.
• Methodically chart a contact’s progress as your relationship with them grows through the business development pipeline. The pipeline indicates which opportunities the firm has in various stages: qualify, develop, propose, and close.

• Navigate the system “by role”, which separates the CRM into various divisions – sales, service, marketing, and so on – allowing each member of your firm to access information relevant to their needs.
• Easily return to the project you were last working on from the top navigation board.
• This CRM charts which user entered the last information, providing record-keeping checks.
• List view of current cases, displaying the work performed by each attorney in your practice. This cases list is helpfully broken down in various ways: cases by origin, case by partner, law type and client, and resolved case satisfaction.
• xRM4Legal also provides a thorough software demonstration that we found to be very helpful. The demo allows users to explore all of the software’s functionality.

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