Phone Intake for Family Law - Best 5 Family Law Strategies

Last Updated on September 24, 2021 by

The Golden Rules of Phone Intake for Family Law

In this section, you’ll learn how to:

Win over a potential client by phone
Avoid common mistakes costing you a potential client
Improve your law firm’s customer relationship management practices

Why Phone Intake for Family Law Matters

Plenty of law firms do everything right. They select the right keywords, optimize their advertising campaigns, publish incredibly valuable articles, use video testimonials to generate interest, and yet…

They don’t get as many clients as they should have.

Often, it’s their phone intake process that is costing them clients.

Phone intake for family law is as much a part of your marketing strategy as your ads are.

You have to optimize it.

Phone Intake for Family Law Best Practices

1. Your receptionist is your sales representative

The person handling calls from potential clients is one of the most important people in your law firm. They should be treated accordingly. Where you set the right foundations with your advertising, your receptionist should “seal the deal.”

2. A warm greeting goes a long way

If the person in charge of handling calls from prospective clients sounds lifeless and disinterested, your clients will be immediately put off. Make sure your receptionist greets everyone warmly and professionally.

You can also assemble phone etiquette guidelines:

Friendly and professional opening statements
Word choice: e.g. “fees” instead of “prices”
Follow-up procedures

3. Respond as soon as possible

When a prospective client calls, they want to talk to a person immediately. Make sure you answer the call before the third ring.

4. Humans, not machines

Don’t discourage your clients from hiring you by directing them to a machine or voicemail. If you must direct them to voicemail, make your greeting personable, and invite them to leave their contact information.

5. Basic case information

While your receptionist isn’t a legal expert, they can still jot down basic case information. Make sure they show empathy and understanding of the caller’s situation. Consider creating an intake form to ease the new client intake process.

6. Phone scripts

Since the person handling the calls is essentially your law firm’s sales representative, you can even consider creating phone scripts they can follow.

The script can contain guidelines about:

Basic information that needs to be obtained
Opening statements
Communication
Everything else you find important

Of course, let your representative speak in their own voice. However, provide them with guidelines to help them do their job better.

7. Empathy and clarity

Your potential clients require your phone representative to provide them with both empathy and clarity.

Instruct them to listen to the caller, pose relevant questions, and show understanding. Often, your clients expect an emotional response before an informational one.

Additionally, make sure that any discussion about fees is clear. Often, phone representatives avoid giving a definitive answer that the callers need. After all, it’s hard to explain fees when they don’t have all the details.

But instead of offering vague answers or avoiding the question altogether, it’s much better to talk about ranges and averages.

8. Track call conversions

Finally, in order to understand what to optimize, you should track call conversions. How many leads have called, only to never book a consultation?

It could be a good sign that your phone intake needs work.

You can also record phone conversations. It’s a good idea if you’re scheduling a lot of appointments by phone. There is always room to grow and if you have all the necessary information, you’ll know exactly what to improve. We recommend the CallTrackingMetrics.

If you’ve attracted your clients with advertising, make sure that the human touch convinces them that your attorneys are the best people for the job.

If you are looking to set up a phone intake marketing strategy to reach your target audience, contact us today!