Turning Phone Leads into Retained Clients

Phone Call Lead Protocols for Law Firms

Keeping a successful firm thriving involves many aspects, but one of the most important is garnering good leads. However, a good lead is only useful when the client is successfully retained. After 33 years in business, Hoglund Law has developed a few key strategies to retain as many clients as possible from our various lead sources especially when it pertains to phone call leads.

Make Yourself Available

The first step in connecting with a potential client is simply connecting the call. During regular business hours, ensure your team is dedicated to making sure every call is answered in under 10 seconds, or by three rings. Not only does this avoid a hang up, it’s the first way you can instill trust in your firm, showing the potential client that their call is important to you.

If picking up the phone is impossible, it’s useful to create a rollover system between team member phone numbers. Most phone providers offer rollover configurations that will ring to a 2nd or even 3rd number to ensure the call gets picked up.

In the worst case scenario of a call going to voicemail, it is imperative that your outgoing message is personalized. This ensures to the potential client that they’ve called not only a real person, but someone with the expertise to help them.

Many firms ask us: do I need to pick up the phone at all hours of the night? In a perfect world, every call answered is an opportunity and who wants to turn down opportunity? But in the real world, it is highly dependent on your practice area. Financial practices like Bankruptcy and Social Security Disability will receive the most reputable calls during business hours or possibly a few hours before or after. However in cases like an arrest or an auto accident, these can happen at all hours of the day or night, so it’s beneficial to be the firm that picks up at 3am.

Establishing Trust

You’ve connected with the potential client, now what? Firstly, it’s best to answer the phone with your name. A simple “hello?” may suffice for personal calls, but reassuring the caller that they’ve connected with the right person goes a long way. If you’re a partner in the firm and they would recognize your name, “Hello this is Attorney First Name/Last Name, how can I help you?” is a great choice. If a non-attorney team member is answering the call, “Thank you for calling Law Firm Name, how can I help you?” will work just fine.

Once on the call, order of operations can help in the event of a disconnection. Establishing their name and phone number near the start of the call is very beneficial in case the call is dropped, as well as organizational purposes if you’re taking notes.

After the contact info is established, finding out if you’re actually able to help them is great to establish as soon as possible. There is definitely an art to this, as some calls can get easily derailed. After all, you take these calls all day, but this is likely the first time this person has had to make a call like this and they likely don’t know what info you need. So if at all possible, try to establish a swift question and answer format at the top of the call so as to not waste anyone’s time. Easy questions like what area they live in or possibly where an incident took place is a great place to start, then you can drill down deeper.

Throughout the call, kindness and empathy are non-negotiable. Many of these calls are being placed by people on one of their worst days. It’s important that you remain aware of their hardship, regardless of their demeanor. Something as small as a few statements like, “I can help you with that” or “I’m sorry to hear that” here and there can go a long way in establishing trust. Not to mention, a large portion of bad reviews come from rude phone experiences.

Reviewing the Tape

One thing that sets our affiliated advertising firm, Hoglund Advertising & Analytics, apart is our robust call tagging protocol. All firms we represent record their calls, and our team listens to each one. This is partly to create in-depth reports on the success of any advertising campaign, but it is also an opportunity to review the call itself. When a firm is bringing in loads of leads, but not retaining many, our team will go back and see what may be going wrong. After thousands of intake calls, some can become blind to some obvious issues that can be resolved by an outside point of view.

Things to Avoid

Lastly, here are a few common mistakes to avoid:

1.    If a receptionist or call center is taking the initial call, make sure they are relaying the correct information to the potential client. Failing to ensure this can lead to calendars filled with clients you are unable to help, or worse yet, unsatisfied clients ready to leave a bad review.

2.    If you decide to record your calls, make sure you are following your state’s compliance requirements. Many states require a notice at the top of the call to alert the caller of the recording.

3.    It is unwise, in some cases illegal to text a caller back without their permission after they’ve called you. A call should always be answered by a call back.