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Automated Intake for Law Firms

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Analytics, Marketing, Messaging, Technology

What Everybody’s Chatting About – How Chatbots Are Revolutionizing Law Firm Intake | Part 5: Collecting Intake Data and Making Better Decisions

In this 6-part series, we’ll address how chatbots are changing the game for law firm intake.  This is part 5, where we’ll discuss how to use intake information to make better decisions.  In part 1, we defined what a chatbot is.  In part 2, we covered common chatbot features.  In part 3, we addressed why chatbots are so essential for modern law firm intake.  In part 4, we taught you how to build the perfect law firm chatbot.

Data analytics has the potential to massively reformulate the way that law firms operate, and touches upon all aspects of law firm management.  Traditionally, lawyers have made decisions about how to run their law firms using gut reactions and ad hoc processes.  Even so, modern businesses make decisions based on data, small and big.  It’s about time law firms joined the fray.  For individual law firms, it makes sense to adopt data analytics practices where others do not, because it affords a massive competitive advantage.

When law firms do focus on data, it’s often financial data or process data.  Oftentimes, marketing data, including intake data, is ignored – this is perhaps a reason why productivity software options far outstrip marketing software options in legal.  But, marketing data, particularly intake data, is extremely useful when mined, which is the entire thesis behind the value of CRM software.  But, while CRM software evokes the entire marketing cycle, including phases of the productivity segment of the client lifecycle, chatbots can drill down to the moment of first engagement with clients, and offer data points respecting that unique moment in time when a potential client of any law firm becomes your lead.

Data acquisition via chatbot is essentially unlimited.  You can ask as much as a lead will tolerate.  For example, you can acquire personal information about financial status, residence, family status, contact information and preferences, and more.  Additionally, a chatbot can collect specific information about a potential client’s claim, like: practice area; date of incident, location of incident and other time and jurisdiction-sensitive information; conflict potential; and, narrative of events.  Not only can a chatbot collect data, but the underlying software can render it into reports.  Those reports can focus on individual clients or groups of clients, and can also be massaged to draw conclusions about case value.  By using a chatbot, and gathering as much information as you can and then leveraging it at the outset of a case (i.e. – before you take it), your law firm will be able to make better decisions about the cases you take on . . . or, don’t.  That process also has applications for the streamlining of referrals.

The data revolution in legal is only just beginning; but, chatbots will become an important component of it.

. . .

Now you know how a chatbot can help you make better decisions about the clients you take on or reject.  We’ll focus next time on chatbots and legal ethics.  Stay tuned, right here.

Analytics, Marketing, Messaging, Technology

What Everybody’s Chatting About — How Chatbots Are Revolutionizing Law Firm Intake | Part 2: Chatbot Features

In this 6-part series, we’ll address how chatbots are changing the game for law firm intake.  This is part 2, where we’ll discuss chatbot features to look for.  In part 1, we defined what a chatbot is.

First off, a warning: chatbots are only just now starting to be developed in the legal vertical.  This is very much a new segment of the industry.  That means that you won’t find the equivalent of a Westlaw in the legal research field, or a Clio in the law firm management space.  These are growing companies, that are adding features; and so, you may not be able to find, at present, a company that offers all of these tools we’re about to discuss in one package.  This is aspirational, then, for the time being; but, it is likely be actual, in the near term.  So, when you explore your chatbot options, ask about existing features, but also inquire about the product development timeline, when new features will be added.

Now, then: What should you be looking for in a chatbot?

You should be able to access a ‘no code’ botbuilding environment.  There should be an interface through which you can build, manage and edit your bots.  It should be simple, straightforward and easy to use.  You don’t want to have to hire a development shop to build bots for you, and then continue to pay to get them updated.  Neither do you want to code bots yourself.  The chatbot tool you select should represent the happy medium between those two options.

Your chatbot should engage leads.  Modern consumers prefer messaging, and you’re going to utilize a chatbot to give your leads that option.  So, their user experience should be your primary consideration.  Is the chatbot visually appealing when it launches at your website?  Is it easy to navigate?  Does the conversation flow?  Can users upload documents?  Remember, the idea is to provide a seamless engagement for legal consumers, not to make them wish for the old days of website contact forms.

You’ll also want to be able to brand your chatbot, so consumers can immediately orient themselves to the fact that they’re engaged with a platform that you operate.  There is limited utility for you in making the chat service’s branding primary.

Your chatbot should qualify clients.  Aside from providing a better consumer experience, one of the reasons you get a chatbot is so that you can save time triaging potential clients.  A chatbot is a great way to avoid the excesses of ‘tire kickers’.  Your chatbot should have classification tools available that can determine whether a potential client is worth your time.  If you can use a chatbot to ferret out low value cases, that means you’ll only deliver yourself opportunities to engage the high value ones.

On a related note, you should be able to route those potential clients to the right attorney or staff person, via notification and scheduling tools.  A functioning chatbot will notify lawyers and/or law firm staff when a lead has hit a qualification.  At the next legal, your chatbot should be able to automatically schedule appointments for leads with the right contact at the law firm, setting calendar appointments for both parties.  Your chatbot software, to that end, should include an internal calendaring system.

A modern law firm chatbot tool should include a lead inbox, with basic information about each intake.  But, that’s where the data analytics should start, not end.  Your chatbot software should track conversations, conversions and scheduled appointments.  Beyond those metrics, your chatbot software should track the effectiveness of the bots you create: Are leads dropping out of conversations before completing them?  Are leads dropping off at a particular question?  Is it taking your leads too long to get through one particular question you’re asking them?  Modern software should track data and analyze trends before delivering consumable metrics to law firms — and so should your chatbot.

Chatbots represent scripted conversations, guidance for law firm leads.  But, what about when a lead asks the bot a question that isn’t in the script?  Your chatbot should react, not implode.  So, can leads skip questions?  Can leads ‘go back’, or otherwise navigate the chatbot without having to answer every question in order?  Does your chatbot provider use natural language processing to credit answers that don’t appear in the exact format expected?

Of course, no software exists in a vacuum any longer.  Every law firm wants each new software tool it acquires to integrate with the other software tools it employs.  While that’s always possible, it makes sense for a chatbot software to integrate with customer relationship management (CRM) software software – for additional lead management capabilities – and with law practice management (LPM) software – to convert leads to clients.  Beyond that, opportunities exist for chatbot software to integrate with signature, epayment and document automation tools.  As with any modern law firm software, there’s almost no limit on how extensible a chatbot platform can be.

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Now that you know what features to look for in a chatbot for your law firm.  We’ll focus next time on why chatbots are essential for modern law firm intake.  Stay tuned, right here.

Analytics, Marketing, Messaging

Like-Kind Exchange: Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery, Until It Isn’t

Managing lawyers like minions.  For all of time, managing attorneys have been trying to create worker bee mini-me’s who can go out and market a law practice just like they do.  Associate attorneys who grow up to be managing partners in their own right, and who shake hands the same way they do, and who use the same tired professional pick-up lines that they do.  Pressing the flesh, making it happen.  Doing the bull dance, feeling the flow.  Working it.

Of course, every generation of lawyers is completely wrong about how the next generation of lawyers should act; and, that will only continue to be emphasized as millennial lawyers come to swamp the profession in the coming decades.  Millennials think and act differently from the preceding generation, they have different requirements and they’re the biggest generation, populationwise, since the Greatest Generation — and are set to have as significant a cultural impact.

So, it’s probably time to start thinking about treating your associates differently, and letting them spread their wings in marketing channels you don’t understand, but where your future clients hang out.  Like Instagram and Snapchat and Twitch and something else I don’t even know about but that your associates do.

Law firms that allow their associates to have meaningful impact on the law firm marketing plan, and that allow their associates the freedom to access new marketing channels in their own right, with continuous trust in their judgment, are the first to break open new marketing channels, and to gain a ‘first mover’ advantage.

I mean, think about it — who knows better where your millennial clients are coming from than your millennial attorneys?

Marketing, Analytics, Technology

Rate of Return: Law Firms Should Update Their Pricing on the Regular

For all the popular legends out there about how attorneys are bloodsucking leeches, the truth of the matter is that most lawyers don’t charge enough.  And, the fact that middle class consumers can’t keep up with legal fees is more about the stagnation of wages, than it is about the cost of legal services, which definitely don’t even keep up with inflation.  In fact, most solo and small firm lawyers are petrified to raise their rates, because they know how far middle class Americans are strapped for cash.  That’s because the vast majority of solo and small firm attorneys are middle class Americans themselves.

All that being said, lawyer rates are mostly below market.  And, one of the main contributors to that fact is that law firm rates generally remain static for years.  If you want to make some more money in your law firm, a really simple solution is to raise your rates up, just a tick.  Many attorneys think that, in order to revamp their pricing that they need to make a big upward change, tacking on at least $100 per hour to all rates — but again, much of that is driven by attorneys’ lack of a consistent process for raising rates: in other words, if they did it more often, the changes wouldn’t have to feel so dramatic.  What if you raised your rates $10 per hour?  Or, $25 per hour?  Doesn’t that make more sense?  And, what if you did that regularly, so it can all add up?  Do you think anyone would complain?

So, why don’t you give it a shot?  At least once a year, review your rates, and adjust them upward, just a little bit.  Even if you only adjust by the annual inflation rates (2.2% in 2018), you’ll make some more money next year, while simultaneously avoiding the pitch fork-toting crowds outside of your front door.  Let’s say that you charge $200 per hour.  Adjusting that rate for inflation ramps you up to a whopping $205 per hour.  Now, multiply that number by the amount of hours you work.  If you bill 1500 hours each year, you just made $7500 appear out of thin air.  That’s real money.  Not that you have to steamroll that back into your business.  You can use that to pay for the vacation you never go on.  Not only that, but you probably have more wiggle room than that slight upcharge, especially if you haven’t updated your rates in a long time.  Change that figure to $25 per hour and you’ve made an additional $37,500 over the course of that year.  That’s enough to pay for an assistant.  In cases like this, simple math leads to big results.

Of course, you know your law practice better than I do, so you should endeavor to adjust your rates based on more than just national inflation rates.  Which areas in your practice are hot/trending?  Where is there a need for ‘emergency’ services?  How much experience do you have?  What are your direct competitors charging?  How much do you invest in technology and how efficient and secure are your practices?  What do your local ethics rules say about how rates may be set?  When you sit down on an at-least-annual basis to reset your rates, do so as a team (if you have one), and come to a consensus on what you can — and what you should — charge.  Then, aggregate it all into a fee schedule, and don’t deviate from that.

Analytics, Marketing, Messaging, Technology

.Org: How to Use Scheduling Tools So Your Content Marketing Efforts Don’t Kill You

The hardest thing about developing a great content marketing program isn’t even writing the content — it’s about publishing the content.  It’s not super difficult to add a new blog post to your website, sure . . . But what about adding your content to various social media channels?  Writing something, especially recording something, is easy — the challenge is then going ahead and posting it your YouTube channels (personal and professional), your Facebook pages (personal and professional), your Twitter accounts (personal and professional), your LinkedIn accounts (personal and professional) . . . Heck, maybe you’ve even got an Instagram account — or, maybe you call it ‘Insta’, like I think the cool kids do.  In any event, it’s a lot to navigate, and a lot of time to spend, especially when the payoff is not immediate, but builds up only over time.

Saving yourself from social media hell, while still effectively managing your law practice is not easy.  But, like many things in life, it comes down to one thing: organization.

There are at least a few things you can do to make sure that your marketing game is strong on social media and that won’t break the bank, or your soul.  (The assumption here is that you’re already competent in creating the content.)

Firstly, choose and use a social media marketing management platform.  You want to use one software through which you can access and post to all your accounts on a schedule.  Free or near-free systems like Hootsuite, Buffer, RavenTools and Tweetdeck will allow you to publish and schedule social media posts across different platforms automatically — even when (actually, especially when) you’re not around to do it.  This means that you can post to social media without falling down some ill-defined social media rabbit hole that you spend two hours with.  And, most of these systems track links and can provide basic post analytics.

Secondly, decide upon a publication schedule.  We all know that the more you can publish, the more traction you’ll get online.  But, It helps to maintain a regular schedule for doing so.  That not only means that you will be more likely to post on a recurring basis, but it also means that you can do it in the same time frame, all the time.  If you started posting your new blog or podcast at 2 pm every Thursday afternoon,  people will begin to expect that, and to look forward to it.  Just don’t stop doing it . . .

Finally, choose a time for when you schedule all your social media posting.  I’m a Sunday night guy myself.  That means you can schedule your entire slate of social media posts for the whole week while watching Game or Thrones.  Then, your only obligation, if you choose to accept it, is to check in here and there throughout the week, in order to engage with your followers.

There’s nothing quite like talking to someone, and having them ask: ‘Wait, did you just tweet something?  How??’

It’s breathtaking.

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