Gideon Legal Chatbot Software

Chatbot Software for Law Firms

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Marketing, Technology

Screen Pass: Has Your Law Firm Looked at Google Screened?

Google Screened is something of a cheat code for SEO, for law firms.

Screened is Google’s verification program, for certain sets of professionals, including lawyers.  So, if you’ve got a clean ethics record and an actual business, you can apply for the program, and get your green checkmark.

Each new lead coming in from Google Screened will cost you a fee, which is based on your location – but, it rides you right to the very top of the Google search results, which is, pretty priceless.

If you’re not aware of Google Screened, or the priority it offers in search, check out this comprehensive guide from 9Sail.

Marketing, Analytics, Technology

Page Turner: How to Take Advantage of Google Search Without Paying Anything

Law firms that market most effectively diversify their tactics.  A little bit of paid advertising, a little bit of building organic search results.  Sprinkle in some review management, and engagement tools.  It’s like a recipe – maybe it looks weird all mixed together in the bowl; but, it all comes together beautifully in the end.

Of course, it does help to squeeze every advantage that you can out of your marketing, like each advertising endeavor was a toothpaste tube with only a little bit left to give.  So, if you’re going to pay to advertise your law firm (which you should), do as much as you can, at no cost, to make that paid advertising even more effective.  This is not about being cheap; it’s about being dominant.

But, even if you’re not yet paying for advertising, you can influence your results, using a simple tactic.

You know potential clients who have been referred to you are not just taking their referral source’s word for it.  Trust but verify is the byword of Google search.  So, when referrals are looking you up online, what do they see?

Most lawyers don’t actually know, because they don’t Google their own names, like those referrals are doing.

But, if lawyers did run vanity searches on Google more regularly, what they would find is that many of the page one results tend to be social media (LinkedIn, Instagram) and directory (Avvo, Yelp) profiles.

So, the very first step to better managing your search results as a lawyer, is to understand what comes up on page one of Google for a search of your name.

Then, the fun starts: Claim the profiles you don’t own.  Build up those you do.  Get reviews.

Your clients are looking a gift horse in the mouth; make sure they like what they see.

And, doing so won’t cost you a thing.

Marketing, Messaging, Technology

What Everybody’s Chatting About – How Chatbots Are Revolutionizing Law Firm Intake | Part 4: How to Build a Chatbot for Maximum Client Engagement

In this 6-part series, we’ll address how chatbots are changing the game for law firm intake.  This is part 4, where we’ll discuss how to build a chatbot for maximum client engagement. 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.

At this point, you’re riding the chatbot train.  You’re down with the conceit.  You understand why the tool is so essential for legal consumers and why it’s so effective for law firms.  Now, you’ve got to build one that actually works in the law firm environment.

Now, hopefully, you’re working with a provider that will help you to build out a chatbot specific to your practice niche(s).  Ask for templates — if they’ve worked with enough law firms, your preferred vendor should have some available.  And, if you don’t want to use what they’ll provide, you’ll at least have an example from which to work.

The nuts and bolts of design are pretty important, so stay tuned:

-Don’t ask for contact information right away.  Consumers don’t want to be made to feel like marketing collateral.  Don’t jump right in, and skip dinner.  Make an introduction.  Allow the consumer to tell you/the bot something about their situation first.  Then, collect contact information later.

-Ask qualifying questions.  What specific practice area is the lead interested in?  What specific characteristics of a claim can the lead confirm?  Does the potential case conform to your jurisdictional limitations?  Is the lead interested in talking to a specific attorney, or in visiting a specific office location?  Drill down into the most basic questions.

-Because the idea is to qualify your potential clients, you’ll want to develop a classification structure to undergird the conversation that will take place.  If the lead is located in Georgia and you’re licensed in Alaska, this might not be a fit.  What is the severity of the case?  Is this an emergency situation?  Set up labels to create classifications in order to route leads to the correct staffperson or attorney in the appropriate timeframe.

-Even if you don’t lead with an ask for contact information, you should capture it at some point later in the conversation.  After all, you’ll need it to get back to your lead later, or to send a notification following the chat conversation.  At least grab an email address.

-In the case of a homepage chatbot, your conversational structure should be brief, and should not exceed 7-10 questions.  Acquire the basic information.  Offer your lead a chance to type in their own version of events.  And lastly, create a call to action.  Consumers complain that lawyers don’t tell them what to do next, or what will happen next.  So, have your lead schedule an appointment via the chatbot, or let your lead know that you will reach out soon.

Chatbots can create lengthy question sets, and dive down deep into branching dialogs.  And, in some cases those use cases will be essential for your process.  A chatbot on a specific attorney’s page may have a different set of questions and length than a homepage chatbot.  Similarly, a chatbot on a practice area page, or at a directory profile, may look and feel different.  If you ultimately decide to run your full intake form through a chatbot, that may be a secondary or follow-up conversation, and one that represents a highly involved interaction — which nonetheless allows you to take advantage of intake features to qualify lead or client responses.

. . .

Now you know how to build a chatbot for maximum engagement.  We’ll focus next time on how to collect and manage data via a chatbot.  Stay tuned, right here.

Marketing, Messaging

Short Tail Cat: How Modern Lawyers Find Referrals

Referral marketing ain’t dead; but, I do have some bad news: it’s becoming a less successful method for building a law practice, where it was traditionally the absolute best way to launch and maintain a law firm.  And, the reason for this is that consumers, especially millennials, are far more comfortable seeking out referrals for service providers online.  In other words, new school law firm clients don’t require a personal recommendation — or, probably more importantly for purposes of this discussion, an in-person recommendation.  And, that’s a big problem for attorneys who rely on traditional referral marketing, which is based almost entirely on the need for in-person recommendations.

Attorneys (and, it’s still the majority of attorneys) who have built their entire book of business on personal referrals meet one person at a cocktail party and tie to that relationship the fervent hope that that one person will meet another person at another cocktail party, and will then remember that prior conversation, and then make a recommendation.  That still happens, don’t get me wrong: it just happens less and less often.  These days, consumers searching for lawyers probably don’t know another lawyer who can make a referral to a colleague, and they’re also far more likely to perform due diligence on their own, rather than wait for an opportune time to get a recommendation from a heretofore unknown person, at some late date.  The modern consumer is not as patient as the traditional consumer; and, frankly, it’s far easier to do your own research online than to go try and find somebody who can recommend somebody else.  That’s a lot of degrees of separation for a person who can just watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones by asking their Smart TV to put it on for them.

So, as a modern lawyer seeking out referrals, you can’t any longer just rely on word of mouth, because even those outlying consumers who want a personal recommendation from another human being will fact check that recommendation online, just to make sure they’re not missing out on any dispositive information.  What does that mean for you, referral marketing attorney in this day and age?  Well, you just have to be sensitive as to where modern consumers are going to look for or make choices about particular service providers, and make sure that you control the narrative in those spaces.  Since even those consumers who have a referral in hand are going to Google you, you need to know what shows up when your name is Googled; and, if you don’t already know, you need to control that vanity search, in that only information that you want populating populates.  Part of controlling that narrative is making sure that your directory profiles and social media landing pages are completed; not only will this drive more compelling search results, it will also cover for those consumers who perform ‘in-app’ searches for service providers, by going to social media and other applications directly, without ever making it to a Google search.

The truth about modern referral marketing is that, even for those consumers who are willing to take a personal referral, the modus operandi is trust but verify — whereas, previously, the verification process was either bypassed, or not as robust as the internet has allowed it to become.  In short, law firms leaning on referral marketing now cannot ignore the requirement of a robust and targeted online presence.

Marketing, Messaging

Long Tail Cat: How Modern Consumers Find Law Firms

Modern consumers are different from old school consumers, in part because they access information about service providers via different methods than have traditionally been used.  And, even those methods are changing rapidly.  It was only fairly recently, for example, that mobile searches overtook the searches from traditional hardware, that had previously dominated the market.

So, for law firms that want to compete, in what remains a highly competitive market, it’s essential to understand how consumers find you, to access your services.  The more you know about that, the more calculating, exacting and effective your marketing becomes.  So, that begs the question: How do modern consumers find law firms?

At a very basic level, there are two ways that consumers find lawyers: (1) because they’ve been referred to someone whose name they now know (and fewer and fewer millennials receive personal recommendations for lawyers — they’re more apt to look online first) or (2) via an online search for a legal topic.

If the consumer already knows who you are (if they’ve been referred to you) they’re likely to execute a Google search.  So, you’ve got to own the ‘vanity search’ for your name.  If you don’t know what the first page of Google looks like when someone searches for you name, try it yourself.  I guarantee you will be surprised by the results.  When you are, you’ll know what work you need to do to beef up your personalized online presence.  When does your website come up in search?  What about directory profiles?  Do your social media profiles appear?  Are there websites containing information about you that you do not control?  To what extent is any of that information negative?  What portion of the information does not relate to you or your business at all?  Now, at least, you’ll have an idea of what you need to tidy up, so that you’re putting your best foot forward in terms of the first things that your leads learn about you, or confirm about you.  But, keep in mind that consumers are not only searching via Google.  With the rise in smartphone usage, lots of consumers are now performing what are called in-app searches, which means that they never get to Google at all.  Instead, they’re going directly to a particular app on their phone, and starting their search there.  So, you need to also make sure that, not just the links to, but your actual social media profiles themselves, are locked and loaded — because that may be the only glimpse a consumer gets into who you are, and what you do.

When consumers don’t know who you are (where there’s been no referral), they’re then searching based on a specific need they have, for which they require guidance (yours, hopefully), and a guide (you, hopefully).  A number of those searches are done using keywords, like ‘real estate lawyer new york’ or ‘personal injury law las vegas’, which big players will spend big dollars optimizing for — but, maybe that’s not you.  If it isn’t, you can build out your marketing strategy in a different way.  Consider that many consumers search for legal services by asking questions, like ‘If I have to sell my house how do i find a lawyer for that’ or ‘i was hurt in a car accident, what do I do now’.  It’s, of course, more difficult to find keyword combinations to fit that search type, especially because lay consumers are not going to be searching for things like ‘tort law indianapolis’.  The way that you can optimize for these ‘long tail’ searches, then, is by utilizing content market.  So, if you write a blog post that reads ‘How to Find the Right Lawyer When You Need to Sell Your House’ or you create and publish a short video titled  ‘What to do When You’re Hurt in a Car Accident’ — and, if you can widely distribute those content pieces online, across social channels and via backlinks — you can generate significant traction in search for short dollars.  Think of the top 10 questions that your clients ask you, and create content pieces around those topics, then publish and share them.  If you can do that, you’re replacing, or supplementing, a traditional SEO spend, with relevant content driven by elbow grease.  Optimize for long-tail search to save money, and show up in places your competitors least suspect you to be.  And, that starts with building an aggressive content marketing engine.

Then, when it comes to your revenue, you won’t be the one who’s a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs — your competitors will be.