Does this sound like your firm?

A 2016 report by Professor Ian Cooper on the conversion of conveyancing enquiries into new files found some damning statistics,

In particular;

Some more sobering stats:

As above, the best process is one that sticks. To a significant extent, how calls are handled and routed internally depends on your firm’s culture, what you do and how you do it. Are calls passed to partners, fee-earners or heads of department quickly? Can administrative staff or junior lawyers handle them?

While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, the following elements should be part of the call handling procedure for any firm taking their BD seriously. At a minimum, your call handling staff should record:

This might seem like a lot of information, and if this list is read from top to bottom it becomes a bit of an interrogation! What you must encourage call handlers to do is to work these elements into a conversation. Don’t worry, that’s not as hard as it sounds!

There’s no perfect or ‘one size fits all’ solution, the best solution is one that sticks and becomes a habit. Any lead-managing process is better than no process.

In any given firm, in our experience, there can be a number of barriers to adopting a conversion strategy. Having staff (who may have been doing things the same way for years) adopt new processes and procedures can be a wrench.

Find out more about sales training for law firms.

Your call handlers should also be given training on the following elements:

Qualifying prospects. A little bit of qualifying goes a long way. Again, the extent to which you qualify leads is dependent to a huge extent on your firm’s culture and client base. You can quickly qualify leads where there is a time-bar (mainly personal injury cases) or where the client may be seeking legal aid. In other situations, a little bit of digging might need to be done. While excessive questioning might seem intrusive, the reality is that most potential clients will be happy to share details and information in order to give you the tools to handle their unique situation (in point of fact, there’s a well-known and well-regarded sales system built on the principle of asking the right type of questions.

Properly qualifying leads will save a huge amount of your fee-earners valuable time and effort.

Answers to the most frequently asked questions prospects call about. Again, this can save valuable time and effort on the part of your fee-earners. This works not just for prospects, but for existing clients too. Having ready answers to frequent questions improves your customer service and streamlines your efficiency. It goes without saying that information like your address, telephone numbers, email addresses and driving directions to your office should trip off the tongue!

Telephone manner. In many firms, reception staff are given carte blanche to answer telephones and deal with clients howsoever they choose. One of the best ways to deal with this is to implement a ‘Culture Code’. This gives staff the answer to most of the ‘questions’ that arise on a day-to-day basis and will help with your recruiting and retention of staff.

Sales training. The handling of incoming calls should not be viewed as a purely administrative task. It’s often given to the lowest-paid and least-engaged employees. If there’s one thing that would improve most law firms’ like law firm in Dallas Texas profitability overnight, it’s switching away from this mindset and towards one that regards this as the most important front-line business development task!

Your firm’s culture. While you could give detailed scripts and processes to call handlers, it’s easier and preferable to give a set of principles to call handlers. At Moore Legal Technology we use our culture code to give our staff the means to handle queries, questions and situations as they arise. As Mark Fields, President of Ford said, “Culture eats strategy for Breakfast”.

Instead of trying to break free from the price-driven race-to-the-bottom, most firms are simply sucked into it.

Sorting by price is the main way for clients to differentiate between lawyers during what is already an expensive transaction. We live a in a world of price-comparison sites (like this business energy price comparison website) and we’re used to purchasing insurance, flight tickets, holidays, and gas, electricity and broadband in this way so why should legal services be different? Well, the answer as we know is that most of the things listed are ‘must haves’ – with the exception of holidays and flights (and you could argue that point, I suppose), we need the other things – just like we often need legal services.

Just as the client is able to intuitively understand price, so are search engines, comparison sites and other algorithms. Numbers are just data and area easy to sort. The other elements of a successful legal transaction are much more difficult to compare – strategic advice, help avoiding pitfalls, additional services and access to a greater spread of expertise are all essential elements that a single number cannot convey.

A price-driven “race-to-the-bottom” suits low-quality, lazy firms and suits the busy client – they don’t have to wade through swathes of information and compare all sorts of information. Simple arithmetic is sufficient. After all, don’t all lawyers provide the same service anyway?

When confronted with this situation, most firms are sucked into a price war. After all, it’s easier to change price than anything else. Branding, market position, value propositions etc all require considerable time and thought. Changing a number doesn’t.

Clients who begin their relationship with you based on price will simply switch when a cheaper alternative is available, harming the long-term profitability of your firm. They simply don’t place a high value on your service –do you really want that type of client?

If you are a conveyancing ‘bucket-shop’, then this situation very probably suits you. You can win on price by cutting corners, employing inexperienced, poorly trained staff and simply produce in volume. There’s no need to be overly worried about client care or the client’s needs outside of (what is hopefully) a relatively straightforward transaction.

If, on the other hand you are reputable firm with expert staff (paid accordingly), then a price war doesn’t suit you. For one, you know it won’t give you the opportunity to properly deal with the client and any issues that may arise. You know you probably won’t be able to do your very best.

That said, not every decision is made on price alone. How often do we pick the cheapest available option?

How can you avoid getting drawn into a price war?

By:

When following up with prospects & enquiries, make sure you do it:

Quickly. If you receive an email, a call or a web form enquiry, follow up promptly – within 5 minutes if you can. The likelihood of that lead converting drops dramatically if you leave it any longer.

Often. People are busy. It’s not enough to call back once or twice and leave it at that. Set in place a minimum of at least 5 times with as many as 10-15 return calls as the norm. The majority of these simply MUST be on the day of the initial enquiry. Again, the likelihood of converting is much, much higher if you persist.

At the right times. This is mainly common sense. Ringing on busy days (Mondays & Fridays) or during working hours is fruitless. Ring between 4:30pm – 6pm and before 8:30 if possible.

Differently from other firms. Don’t leave the standard “Hi, it’s such-and-such from So-and-so law firm, returning your call…” Be a bit more personal – refer to their enquiry in detail, give them your direct dial and explain WHY you are the right firm to help – i.e. “we have specific experience of just this type of matter and I have a solution in mind for you…”

In a dedicated fashion. In other words, don’t get fee-earners to do it! Time and again we see the same issue – busy people shun BD in favour of client work. Try to have someone in the team whose specific role is to handle enquiries. Keeping business development and the ‘operational’ or fee-earning elements of the business separate is the only way to truly grow.


Reference:
moorelegaltechnology.co.uk