It’s hard to get a web visitor to stick on your site for more than a few seconds, without some viable consumer engagement tools. It’s not just that modern humans don’t have that kind of attention span, it’s that consumers are conditioned to expect a certain level of immediacy in communication with brands, including law firms. If a legal consumer cannot immediately and easily take a first step down the client journey with a law firm, they’ll bounce – and, end up nothing more than a statistic in a Google Analytics report, when they might have become a paying client, had a viable engagement option presented itself.
This is largely the reason why contact forms are not particularly compelling for client conversion. There’s nothing to them; you fill in some information, and then what? Black hole.
Whereas other options provide value for modern legal consumers, because they allow those consumers to actually interact with a brand. Scheduling tools are popular, because you can book an appointment with a professional, without having to talk to anyone. Chat tools are successful because there is a back-and-forth engagement between consumer and brand; and, that’s true even for chatbots – because that level of engagement is tied to the fact that there is an interaction, not necessarily an interaction with a human.
If it’s true that your law firm website is the hub of your online marketing, as it should be, there has to be something at the center. And, the question of whether or not you can engage consumers effectively on your website is the exact same question you’d ask the holder of a Tootsie Pop?
How many licks does it take to get to the center?