Legal intake professionals are the key to a successful client conversion process. Regardless of how strong a law firm’s marketing tactics are, without a top-notch intake team, potential clients can slip through the cracks.
These highly-trained specialists respond to calls and web leads from potential new clients and show that a law firm is a good match for them. Essentially, they complete the conversion process and set the stage for a rewarding attorney-client relationship.
Below are a few reasons law firms should utilize legal intake professionals.
1. Legal Intake Professionals Stop the Shopping Process
When prospects call a law firm, they can sometimes have a vague understanding of their problem while feeling an acute need for a solution. A legal intake team helps clients move from the “consideration” to the “decision” stage of the legal lead’s buyer’s journey.
When moving legal leads through the buyer’s journey, first impressions can make a difference between signed contracts and lost clients. The legal virtual assistant has only a few minutes to make the potential client realize that they’ve come to the right place.
To help a lead make a decision on the spot, legal intake professionals have extensive conversion experience and sufficient knowledge about a firm’s legal services. The intake team outlines clear next steps, such as scheduling an appointment, so prospective clients stop shopping for other firms.
2. Legal Intake Professionals Sign New Clients in a Single Call
When leads call a law firm, they aren’t always ready to become clients on the spot. Experienced legal intake professionals structure the conversation in such a manner that it often ends with a newly signed contract.
A professional intake team has excellent call control and conversion skills. In just a few minutes, an intake specialist can drive a conversation in a way that is empathetic, but also gathers all of the pertinent information necessary to complete an intake. By the end of the call, the specialist is able to show prospects the firm’s capability to provide a solution to their problem by obtaining a signed retainer via e-sign.
If they can’t get the prospect to sign on that first call, the intake team follows up, chases and retrieves unsigned contracts through outbound calls, texts and emails.
3. Legal Intake Professionals Increase Revenue
By being available 24/7/365, a professional intake team helps law firms never miss a call from prospective clients.
By turning as many high-potential leads into clients as possible, an intake team gives firms an opportunity to generate more revenue. The process filters out unqualified leads, saving legal teams time to focus on revenue-generating tasks.
4. Legal Intake Professionals Make Law Firms Look Good
Law firms only have one chance to make a positive, lasting first impression. The quality of intake can make or break an attorney-client relationship.
While a legal team has an excellent understanding of law and their firm’s services, it may not have sufficient experience with converting leads. Not to mention, attorneys, paralegals, office managers, and other legal staff are often busy and don’t have enough time to pick up the phone or respond to web leads. Even if they do, due to multitasking, many prospective clients can become lost because they’re not properly captured, nurtured and converted.
Meanwhile, legal intake professionals are solely dedicated to answering calls and responding to web inquiries. A legal answering service provides potential clients, and current clients, with undivided attention when they pick up the phone.
5. Legal Intake Professionals Prevent Mistakes
While the intake process may seem straightforward, it’s easy to make mistakes. From writing the wrong information down to mixing up appointment times, busy legal professionals can overlook important organizational issues. As a result, firms may lose clients and hurt their reputation.
A team of legal intake professionals collects and organizes the necessary information to schedule appointments, process intake forms, and reroute clients to the right experts. Intake specialists know how to organize the intake process efficiently without wasting time.
Streamline Firm Operations with a Professional Intake Team
By outsourcing the intake process to a team of experts, law firms can be sure that leads with high potential turn into clients while removing the trouble of weeding out time-wasting unqualified prospects.
Other benefits of outsourcing client intake include managing call overflow, picking up leads after office hours, and saving time and money on hiring in-house intake professionals.
At the end of the day, a team of legal intake professionals can improve law firm operations, increase marketing return on investment, and boost revenue.
