As law firms grow, it can become incredibly time-consuming to market your firm, perform all the necessary tasks associated with client intake, maintain strong client relationships and complete enough billable hours.
These five tips can help your firm streamline processes and propel growth.
Converting leads into clients can require a lot of touchpoints. When done manually through individual emails, texts or phone calls, this process can be quite time-consuming.
When you automate lead-converting marketing campaigns, you can nurture leads more effectively and with greater results. Legal customer relationship management (CRM) systems help firms set up drip campaigns by:
If you’re worried that your messages will come across as “automated,” remember that you can fully customize your messaging. Automated email sequences and text messages don’t have to be impersonal.
You can use legal CRM to create personalized marketing email campaigns specific to each step in your client intake process. Email drip campaigns require an initial setup, and once complete, you can use them indefinitely with only minor adjustments, saving your firm countless hours of email outreach to potential leads.
A manual client intake process is time-consuming and error prone. It requires repetitive, tedious administrative work. Moreover, if a lead isn’t the right fit for your firm, you may feel frustrated at the time spent on work that didn’t generate revenue.
Logic-based intake forms help firms identify which leads may be a fit for their firm from the start. Through customizable and intelligent intake forms, law firms can pose questions that qualify leads based on the practice area or services required.
Even after intake forms are submitted, you have more work to do before a lead officially becomes a client. This may mean phone calls, consultations and further meetings. Leading your potential client through these meetings and getting them to sign on the dotted line requires good communication and follow-up. After all, you’re busy, but so are your clients.
Legal CRM can reduce your workload by sending out automated messages to schedule meetings, remind potential clients about upcoming meetings, send follow-up paperwork and more.
Document management is a critical part of the client intake process, but it has historically been a hands-on process. Whether it’s document assembly or reminding clients to return a signed document, even minor issues can delay the intake process and leave your client with a less-than-perfect first impression.
With a legal CRM system, law firms can automate document assembly to streamline client intake workflows by pulling from client profiles within the CRM.
“Legal CRM makes it easy to share files with clients securely, obtain legally binding e-signatures from clients and import documents once signed ... Firms can begin their relationship with new clients on the right foot through a prompt and seamless client intake process.”
Legal CRM makes it easy to share files with clients securely, obtain legally binding e-signatures from clients and import documents once signed. With text message automation, you can share documents securely and send automated follow-ups, reminders, e-signature requests and appointment confirmations. Firms can begin their relationship with new clients on the right foot through a prompt and seamless client intake process.
When your systems don’t integrate, you spend more time switching between systems, transferring data and triple-checking for errors.
In addition to the relationships you build with your clients, an integrated CRM saves your legal team significant time throughout the week with streamlined workflows that maximize efficiency.
Rather than constantly switching between different platforms and devices, integrated legal CRM provides a single, user-friendly platform where a law firm can manage client intake, schedule appointments and share files without missing a beat.
Growing your client base doesn’t have to be a catch-22. It is possible to bring in more clients in less time without sacrificing billable hours for your current clients.
With a legal CRM system, your law firm can spend more time providing expert legal services and less time on marketing and lead conversion. And rather than sacrificing your marketing efforts or the quality of your client relationship management, legal CRM simplifies the process to enable effective marketing and client communication with tools specifically built for law firms.
