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Do you have a legal bot but you aren't using it?
This was our webinar today suggesting one way that you can use your legal bot.
You can use the chat bot for whatever you like, but I am particularly biased towards quick and easy marketing solutions, so here I will talk about that.
Law firms get clients through different methods. These days you have law firms getting clients through Facebook and Instagram inquiries, as well as more old fashioned methods such as word of mouth or networking.
However a potential client initially comes across your details though, I want to suggest to you that they have almost certainly Google'd you or otherwise researched you online.
What is your plan once they find you online. How are you planning to convert them from browsing your website to a new client?
I want to suggest to you that whatever your plan is, you can use the legal chat bot to help with that. Your plan might be to sign them up for a free 15 minute discovery call, or to get them into your office for an initial consultation, or to get them started on their matter.
I will look at this last goal in this blog as it is a popular option at the moment. Getting someone started on their matter, whether they have stumbled across your website, or whether they have been referred to you by a trusted colleague, can get them emotionally invested in your firm while they are online at 11pm at night rather than hoping that they call you in the morning.
You can ask them some questions, including catching non family law clients, getting their contact information and forwarding their details to the relevant person at your firm.
You can get the information off of them that you need to open a new matter, and send them a follow up email indicating what the next steps are. You or a staff member will also get an email with the client's details and a link to their matter, making it easy to generate the client intake questionnaire from your phone and email it to them.
The trick is to make it different and personal. This is why automation generally takes such a long time, but what we are doing here is little bite sized automation. We just want to do this one thing, catch someone who is browsing your website and get their details. Invest an hour in getting your legal bot and landing page right, putting it into your words, your tone, and making it fit into your plan for catching clients at your website.
How would you talk to a new client sitting across your desk in an initial interview? That should come through in the words you use in your chat bot.
If you get this bit right then it can catch clients for you repeatedly.
You can change not just the words but also the look of the chat bot. The photo that you choose is actually what shows up at the bottom of the screen when the prompt is minimised (see below).
This is a landing page that I created using Mailerlite, because I wanted some really simple basic landing pages to deal with the number of Facebook enquiries that we get at Novus Law Group. I have set the bot up to get basic information, and to then email the client with information about the process and to confirm what our next steps are. I can then call the client in the morning. I will set out instructions for setting up the chat bot in this blog post.
If you want to visit the chat bot that I set up, you can do that here.
Not only have I caught someone looking at the landing page I have sent them to, I am no longer trying to take down email and phone number details on the phone which is awkward and error prone.
If you like, you can also include in the email that goes back to the client the next step in your intended workflow, which in this case would be explaining the basic process and cost of an initial interview. I will still call them and explain it, but I find it useful for them to also have everything confirmed in writing.
If I combine the legal chat bot with our client intake form, then now the only parts that I do are the parts in blue. I have reduced the time it takes to onboard a client and it cost me an hour of my time. More importantly my client is not seeing me collect basic information, my client interaction is now focus on the client, hearing them, and telling them how I can help.
By fixing this workflow I have increased the opportunities to truly engage with the client. Computer programs and workflow can have 'soft skills', you just have to use them that way. By letting an automated form do the impersonal or robotic feeling parts, like collecting phone numbers or getting dates and dollar figures, I am freeing my time with the client to be more personal. You can read more about the importance of using the client intake process to make your client feel truly heard in my blog here or in the Webinar with Professor Patrick Parkinson (below).
If you would like to receive a video recording of the Webinar that these slides were part of (featuring Professor Patrick Parkinson AM talking about the client intake process), then please join our mailing list here and you will automatically be sent the recording.